Consumer Reports reveals that the new iPhone 3G S has topped its new smartphone ratings, citing strong performance in everything but voice quality. The device has also scored points for its superior display, top-notch multimedia, navigation, Web browsing, and battery life, the report says.

“The iPhone 3G S tops our new smart-phone Ratings [...] with strong performance in everything but voice quality, an area in which few phones score well. It's not a runaway winner, though,” Consumer Reports claims. “A number of other phones ranked close to the iPhone, including the Palm Pre, which turned in a fine performance, as we expected from our head-to-head review of these two highly publicized rivals,” the company shares about the Consumer Reports blog.

“The phones vary significantly in how they achieve their high scores,” the post continues. “The iPhone 3G S edged out high-scoring competitors such as the Palm Pre and BlackBerry Storm thanks to a superior display, reinforced by top-notch multimedia, navigation, Web browsing, and battery life. However, the Pre, the Storm, and other BlackBerry models bested the iPhone in messaging, and the Pre, with its new deck-of-cards handling of multiple applications, is a superior multitasker.”

Because of the iPhone, Consumer Reports has also added new criteria to its Ratings and put more emphasis on the display, ease of navigation, multimedia and messaging, to better differentiate it from other smartphones, and rate it as it deserves.

“To better display those differences, we recently added more attributes to our Ratings and put more emphasis on the display, ease of navigation, and multimedia and messaging prowess. In turn, we've somewhat reduced the contribution of talk time (as reflected in our battery life results) and voice quality, in part to reflect the growing importance of non-voice use of smart phones.”

Consumer Reports’ full smartphone Ratings report is available only to subscribers. Visit the company here to learn more.