Announcing The 3rd Annual Smartphone Round Robin!

We are ridiculously excited to announce that today we're launching the 3rd annual Smartphone Round Robin! If you've never heard of the Round Robin, buckle up: Each year the sites of the Smartphone Experts Network spend some time out of our comfort zone, examining the platforms of our sister sites and learning how other smartphone users live. This year, the event will span six weeks, eight sites, over a dozen phones, over five hours of video, hundreds of photos, several hours of podcasts, dozens of discussion threads, and of course dozens of comparison reviews. Seriously.

What's in it for you? Plenty, we hope. To start with, each site will be giving away one smartphone (or your choice!) representing its platform. We have a Twitter contest for accessory prizes every week too. You can find contest details here.

More than that, though, every year we hear from grateful readers who have said the Round Robin helped them decide on their next smartphone, made them happier about the one they have, or even compelled some to switch outright. Researching and learning six platforms and all the phones on each is a massive undertaking - so we're doing it for you and you can just follow along.

If you want to know more about how to play along with this crazy event, hit up SmartphoneRoundRobin.com, where we explain the contest, the schedule, the participants, and even have an archive of the last two events.

The event begins in earnest on Monday, but today we're releasing the first of several podcasts, all of which are hosted by our friends at The Cell Phone Junkie.  We'll toss direct links to download and subscribe after the break, plus let you know who's playing along this year.

How to listen:

• The Cell Phone Junkie
• Subscribe with your favorite client
• Subscribe via iTunes
• Listen via phone with Podlinez: 510-495-6352
• Download the show directly

Participating sites

Smartphone Round Robin

@speroundrobin

Android Central, Casey Chan (@caseychan)

CrackBerry, Kevin Michaluk (@crackberrykevin)

Nokia Experts, Matthew Miller (@palmsolo)

The iPhone Blog, Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)

PreCentral.net, Dieter Bohn (@backlon)

WMExperts, Phil Nickinson (@philnickinson)

The Cell Phone Junkie, Mickey Papillon (@TCPJ_Mickey)