10 best phones of Mobile World Congress 2014

This year's gathering of the phone nerds has just taken place in Barcelona, with Mobile World Congress 2014 seeing stacks of new mobiles revealed by the likes of HTC, Sony, LG and Samsung, all jostling for the prize of securing your 2014 phone contract upgrade.

Key trends this year were the arrival of 4K video capture on several mobiles and a continued emphasis on larger displays that'll push trouser pocket capacity harder than ever in 2014, plus there was the enormous shock of seeing Microsoft-owned Nokia release a whole range of budget smartphones running on rival Google's Android OS.

While there was lots of new tech to see and poke, the event didn't quite expose all of 2014's phone plans, though. Apple wasn't there and Nokia didn't bring any new Windows Phone models, so what we saw was mostly the Android consortium battling to come up with something that stood out from the crowd. These are the ten that got our fingertips the most flustered.

1. YotaPhone 2

Not likely to arrive before very late in 2014, the next-gen YotaPhone was at MWC 2014 in the form of a concept device. And what an exciting concept it is too, expanding on the genius idea of sticking a low power epaper display on the back of the phone by making this B&W display now a full touchscreen.

This means many key phone functions can be carried out via the vastly more efficient epaper screen, meaning battery life ought to be immense when using this always-on screen alone for your notifications. Internally, the ubiquitous Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 runs the show, with the "main" colour screen a 5-inch unit outputting at 1080 resolution – and the epaper screen managing a decent 960 x 540.

2. LG G Pro 2

LG's well-teased 5.9-inch whopper was one of the hits of MWC 2014, with the phablet device and its knock-knock screen unlocking tricks, post-shot refocusing and clever display scaling for one-handed use showing that LG's really getting on the ball with its software features. The hardware's about as impressive as it gets too, with the G Pro 2 running on a 2.26GHz Snapdragon 800 processor with 3GB of RAM, plus its 13megapixel camera has 4K video capture and a 120fps slow-motion recording option for… whatever that might be for.

3. Sony Xperia Z2

Sony's big new flagship for 2014 is the Xperia Z2, which somehow squeezes even more oomph into a chassis just 8.2mm thick. It's slightly bigger than last year's impressive Z1 slab too, with the Z2 offering a 5.2-inch display that operates at the "full HD" resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Interestingly, Sony's using the Z2 to encourage punters to upgrade their home TVs, with the phone's 20.7megapixel camera able to capture 4K video at the ludicrously high 3840 x 2160 resolution. That ability comes thanks to the upgraded internals, with the Z2 powered by Qualcomm's brand new Snapdragon 801 series chipset clocked at 2.3GHz and paired here with 3GB of RAM. A 3,200mAh battery ought to keep it running for a good couple of days, too. We hope.

4. Huawei Ascend G6

As far as Huawei is concerned, the big selling point of the Ascend G6 is its five-megapixel wide-angle front-facing camera, meaning that, if you like looking at your own face, you can do so in better clarity than on rival hardware. The rear camera's an eight-megapixel unit manufactured by Sony, so proper pics of things other than your gurning face ought to come out nice too.

The G6 is bordering on the 'budget' spec for 2014 elsewhere, though, combining a quad-core 1.2GHz chipset with 1GB of RAM and a low-ish resolution display of 540 x 960. On just a 4.5-inch IPS screen that resolution shouldn't be too much of a deal-breaker, with Huawei compensating with a low RRP of around €249 (£205). Not bad for a slim 4G phone.