With half of 2013 already gone I thought it might be interesting to consider the phones that have already been released this year and to ponder what the next six months may offer. So far we’ve seen most of the major players release their latest models but arguably the biggest release of the year will be the new iPhone, most likely called the 5s. With the increasing threat of Samsung, Apple will want to hit all the right notes otherwise they may really fall behind Samsung in market share. Here are the best of the phones we’ve seen so far:

Sony Xperia Z

An excellent android phone from Sony and probably their best to date. It offers a 5 inch TFT touchscreen, a 1.5ghz quad core processor, a 13 megapixel rear-facing camera and the added benefit of water resistance.

Blackberry Q10

Relatively well received phone with a 3.1 inch Super AMOLED touchscreen, 8 megapixel rear-facing camera and 1.5ghz dual-core processor. As always the physical Qwerty keyboard is what appeals to business mobile phone users but unfortunately for Blackberry this handset hasn’t done much for their share price.

HTC One

For many reviewers this is the best phone of 2013 so far. As well as a 1.7ghz quad-core processor and 4 megapixel rear-facing ‘UltraPixel’ camera, it has a stylish aluminium case and a very impressive 4.7 inch 1080p Super LCD3 touchscreen. Unfortunately for HTC they just don’t seem able to make the same impact on consumers and sales have been disappointing.

Samsung Galaxy S4

The Galaxy S4 from Samsung builds nicely on many of the popular features of its predecessor the S3. The screen is sharper with a 5 inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen and is full HD. It packs a faster 1.9Ghz quad-core processor and the 13 megapixel rear-facing camera is also an improvement.

Tempted by any of those? If not, here are the main phones yet to come:

Motorola X

Google, now owner of Motorola, will be hoping to gain some market share with this offering. It seems it will be a mid range phone with a long-life battery being the main selling point.

Nokia Eos/1020

Likely to be similar in design to existing phones in the Lumia range, it will probably run Windows Phone 8 and, if the rumours are to be believed, incorporate a staggering 41 megapixel camera!

iPhone 5s

The question is will Apple stick or twist? The easy choice is to just keep the iPhone 5 design and upgrade the specs. The bold choice would be to go with a new design, bigger screen and some unique features. Based on past experience Apple will probably play it safe.

So, there you have it. 2013 has seen some fantastic phones with more hopefully to come. All-in-all the state of play in the smartphone market looks pretty good.