What has been a surprise with the 2014 flagship smartphones?

Back in March, I asked a relatively simple question: would any 2014 flagships actually surprise us in any way? I felt it was a fairly reasonable question because the daily deluge of rumors and the general trend of simply iterating hardware has led to us knowing quite a bit about what to expect whenever a flagship is on the way. With the release of the Nexus 6 and the start of the holiday season, we have seen the last of the 2014 flagships released; so, it seems like a good time look back and see if there really were any surprises throughout the year.

When you first start to think ...