Samsung, HTC and LG trade insults after mobile awards bash

Twitter isn't short of people slagging each other off, but it's a bit of a surprise when the UK arms of the some of the world's biggest phone companies get involved.

That's exactly what happened this week, after the Mobile Industry Awards, at The Brewery, in London's Chiswell Street. HTC kicked things off with a tweet announcing it'd won Hottest Phone of 2013 for the HTC One. Nothing combative about that, you might think, until you see it ended the tweet with "Ouch @SamsungMobileUK". And then the gloves were off.

Samsung responded in kind. "That's okay guys, our arms were full with the other three awards we took home last night. You can have that one!"

HTC hit back. "[A]ll those students you paid to write fake reviews of your competitors finally paid off. Pay rise, maybe?" This refers to the fact Samsung admitted that it was hiring students in Taiwan to write anonymous reviews of rival companies' mobile phones. Unsurprisingly, the reviews were all quite damning.

Then LG waded in with a picture of the late Michael Winner from his Esure days, urging both Samsung and HTC to "Calm down dears! It's only a phone!"

I think LG came out best, but the whole exchange was a little petty. I don't see why HTC would feel the need to provoke Samsung like that, especially given that Samsung had already won Phone of the Year for the Galaxy S3. But then that doesn't excuse Samsung for hitting back the way it did. It'd be nice if we could all rise above this kind of mudslinging.

What do you think of the exchange? Harmless banter, or just embarrassing? Was HTC right to rub Samsung's nose in it? Who makes the best phones out of the three? Let me know in the comments, or over on our Facebook page.