Samsung Vibrant

Out of all the Samsung Galaxy S series models, we'd have to say the Samsung Vibrant is the sleekest and sexiest one of the bunch. The look is rather familiar, but the combination of the slim profile, clean design, and rounded edges is really pleasing to the eye. Also, at 4.82 inches tall by 2.54 inches wide by 0.39 inch thick and 4.16 ounces, the Vibrant makes for a nice travel companion, slipping easily into a pants pocket and feeling lightweight in the hand. That said, the handset feels plasticky and slick. We wouldn't say it's fragile, but it definitely left a lot to be desired, especially compared with the solid and durable Nexus One.

Samsung admits that it hasn't really attacked the U.S. smartphone market as aggressively as it's done with basic handsets, but the company's planning to change all that with its Galaxy series. Launching with all four major U.S. carriers, as well as a couple of regional providers, the Android-based Galaxy S models come with impressive stats, such as large Super AMOLED touch screens, 1GHz Hummingbird Cortex A8 processor, and an entertainment content store. But is it too little, too late? Well, after spending some time with the Samsung Vibrant for T-Mobile, we don't think so.Sleek, fast, and packed with entertainment features, the Vibrant shines as a multimedia device and beats T-Mobile's other top Android offering, T-Mobile my touch 3g slide, in that department. However, battery life is a concern; if you plan on taking full advantage of the Vibrant's multimedia capabilities, you'd be wise to carry an extra battery or charger with you at all times. The Samsung Vibrant will be available from T-Mobile starting July 15 for $199.99 with a two-year contract.

Like the rest of the Galaxy S series, the Vibrant runs on Android 2.1 with Samsung's TouchWiz 3.0 interface. The latter is definitely improved from previous versions, with some enhanced functionality and a more polished look.

To start, there are new widgets, including one called Feeds & Updates and another called Buddies Now. Feeds & Updates streams updates from Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, and you can choose to display content from one, two, or all three of the social-networking sites, as well as set the refresh rate, ranging from 30 minutes to once a day. Buddies Now is like a favorites list and allows you to immediately call or text those contacts, as well as comment on any of their updates. There are a number of other Samsung widgets, as well as Android widgets and other shortcuts, all of which can be added to one of seven home screens.

The home screens can also be personalized with live wallpapers, but there are two elements that can't be changed: the pull-down notification tray on top, which now includes wireless manager and profile functions, and the toolbar along the bottom with quick-launch buttons to the phone app, contacts, messages, and applications. Pressing the latter takes you to a nice grid view of all your apps; they're spread out over several pages, which you can swipe from side to side to get to. We much prefer this layout over the standard Android one, where you have to scroll up and down. It feels more natural and easier to navigate.

The LG Rumor Touch

Long before messaging phones became a trend, LG has been making feature phones with full QWERTY keyboards. Verizon has its line of Voyager and enV handsets, and Sprint has the LG Rumor and the subsequent LG Rumor 2. Though they made decent messaging phones, the previous Rumor handsets were more for the entry-level consumer due to their basic feature sets.

The LG Rumor Touch changes all that, however; it is the first touch-screen phone to bear the Rumor branding, and it carries a slew of improved features. Not only that, but the Rumor Touch carries a unique user interface that seems tailor made for sending and receiving text messages. Its impressive feature set includes a 2-megapixel camera, a 3.5mm headset jack, GPS, and EV-DO Rev. 0.

As the name suggests, the Rumor Touch has a large 3-inch touch screen display on the front. It is capable of showing 262,000 colors and holds a 240 x 400-pixel WQVGA resolution, which results in a vibrant display with crisp text and images. You can adjust the brightness, the backlight time, and the font size. The touch screen is resistive so you can either use a stylus or your fingertips to navigate. It doesn't feel as smooth as a capacitive display, but it's not any slower than other resistive screens we've tried. You can add haptic feedback if you want the phone to vibrate whenever you select something and there's a touch calibration wizard if you want better touch precision. Underneath the display are three physical controls--the back key, the home screen key, and the Call key.

The user interface on the Rumor Touch is unlike most other touch screen phones we've tried. The welcome screen area is quite blank, except for the date, time, battery, and signal strength information on the top bar and a single shortcut to the home screen on the bottom. However, whenever you get new incoming text messages, you will see a small bubble icon on the upper right with a number that indicates how many you received. When you select that icon, all your new messages will appear as floating bubbles, filling up the normally empty welcome screen. From there you can either close them out or start replying to your messages. We thought this bubble interface idea is quite a clever one, especially if you're a big messaging fanatic.

When you select the home screen, you will find a simple list view of frequently used applications. You can easily customize this by adding and removing shortcuts. The main menu is presented in exactly the same boring list layout--we would've preferred some kind of variety here to differentiate the two zones. Still, at least it was easy enough to navigate to the features we wanted.

Another specialty that sets the Rumor Touch apart from other phones is the Hello UI, or Hello User Interface. It's accessible via the Contacts list and is essentially a smart way of grouping up your contacts. There are four colored dots on the left hand side, and each corresponds to a different group. To add a contact to a group, simply select the add symbol and choose a contact from your address book. The contact will then be represented on the Hello UI as a cartoon character--you can change this to one of 12 included characters or you can select your own picture to represent him or her.

You can add up to six contacts per group. From there you can drag and drop the icons around or you can snap them to a grid if you like. When you select an individual contact, a circle of shortcuts will appear around the image. They lead to a new text message, the most recent text conversation with him or her, a speed dial to that person, plus quick access to the contacts list. Perhaps the coolest thing you can do with the Hello UI is that you can draw a "lasso" around all the contacts in a particular group to send all of them a group text message.

To get to the number dial pad, you have to press the Call key. The virtual dial pad has large numbers so you can easily dial without messing up. There are also shortcuts to a new text message, the recent calls list, the phone book, and the aforementioned Hello UI. As for sending a text message, you can do so via the touch screen with either handwriting recognition or a T9 keypad. There's no virtual QWERTY keyboard, but that doesn't bother us because the Rumor Touch has a full physical keyboard.

The keyboard slides sideways to the right of the phone, which will then prompt the display to change from portrait to landscape mode. If you are doing this from standby, you'll be presented with the messaging menu the second you slide out the keyboard so you can get started on typing out texts straightaway. The keyboard is quite spacious--it is a five-row keyboard, which gives it one row just for numbers. The keys are raised above the surface in a smooth bubble shape so it's easy to text by feeling your way around. However, the Back, Enter, and arrow keys take up just a tad too much space on the right, which throws off our natural thumb typing position. It therefore takes a little slower to type out texts than we would like.

On the left spine of the Rumor Touch are the volume rocker and camera key, and the 3.5mm headset jack, the Power/Screen lock key, and the microSD card slot are on the right. The charger jack is on the bottom and the camera lens sits on the back next to the external speaker.

Samsung Champ

Samsung Champ Mobile Phone is a touch screen cell phone with several useful features offered at the right cost.

This mobile phone targets mainly the youngsters who would like to use new creative methods to utilize their cell phones. The design of this phone is super compact and stylish. Convenient grip and curved features are offered in this phone. It is available in several attractive colors such as chic white, dark black, brown expresso and sweet pink. The touch display screen is very large with about 2.4" in size. The menu format is designed in a simple way. The touch screen ability is suitable for sending SMS, enjoying Java video games and downloading applications. The touch screen is provided with attractive color differences and vibrant images. The 240 x 320 pixel screen is capable of displaying about 256,000 colors. The activity of image rotation is automated with the help of an accelerometer sensor.

The battery power of this phone can be retained for a long time, hence the users can enjoy multimedia facilities for a long time wherever they go. Bluetooth facilities, small SD card with a memory capacity of 8GB along with a travel and headset adapters are also included.

SOS alert is one of the excellent features of the phone. When the Samsung Champ Mobile Phone users are in trouble, this alert facility will search for a help nearby. To send a SOS SMS, the clear key i.e., the C key must be pressed four times after locking the keypad. This activity will send SMS to about ten numbers selected by the user immediately. This SMS will provide alert messages to the receivers and indicate that the message sender is in need of a help. When a call is received from the receiver, the Champ mobile phone will immediately answer the calls and pass on the message to the user and help them in getting the proper support.

A useful phonebook facility is also provided in this phone which is able to store about 1,000 calls along with the photo call facility. The inbuilt memory of this phone is about 30MB which can be extended with a Micro SD card. MP4 and MP3 media players are capable of accepting and supporting different formats of files. The speakerphone is provided with stereo speakers. The FM radio is of stereo type and it is provided with RDS thus enabling the mobile users to listen to a wide variety of radio stations.

Other interesting entertainment such as games and social networking are also included. This phone is very light to handle having only a weight of about 80grams. The mobile tracker facility offered in this phone helps the users to find their mobile phones easily when it is lost or stolen. Tata Zone facility is useful for downloading the desired ringtones, games and wall images. Lengthy messages containing up to 480 characters can be sent using this device. This phone is capable of storing 150 SMS and 20 template messages.

This mobile phone can be compared with HTC smart mobile phone. HTC phone does not have a good battery life as the Samsung phone. It is slightly heavier than the Samsung phone with a weight of about 108 grams. Micro SD facility is almost equal in both the phones. The camera of HTC phone is about 3 MP having a higher resolution than the Samsung Champ Mobile Phone. The antenna is fixed internally in Samsung phone however it is not present in the HTC phone.

The Samsung Champ is due to be released in early Autumn of 2010 in the UK. It is expected that you'll be able to get Samsung Champ deals on contract with all of the 6 major UK networks as well as on Pay As You Go due to its low price.

Nokia N97 mini

Nokia's powerhouse N97 touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard-packing smartphone may have arrived to mixed reviews, but its new, rescaled Nokia N97 Mini stablemate offers a refreshed take on the device. Its 'Mini' moniker doesn't mean this is a heavily stripped down version of the original N97, however. While it does pare down some elements of the N97 - such as a smaller screen and reduced internal flash memory from 32GB to 8GB - the N97 Mini is still a big hitter in the pure feature count department.

The N97 Mini is a full touchscreen smartphone device, running on Nokia's Symbian S60 5th Edition platform - previously seen on recent models like the N97 and 5800 Xpress Music. It has a 3.2-inch display, and has a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard with a tilting screen, and, geared up to be a web-orientated multimedia device, it supports high-speed HSDPA mobile data as well as Wi-Fi connectivity. It's loaded up with an impressive amount of applications out of the box, and as well as multimedia player capabilities it has A-GPS location finding with Nokia's Maps software, plus a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics.

The typical touchscreen slab look of the Nokia N97 Mini is similar to the original N97, with a minimalist front panel sporting a trio of keys below the screen. But the bodywork is smaller than the bulky N97 - the N97 Mini measures 113(h) x 52.5(w) x 14.2(d) mm and weighs 138g, compared to the original's 117.2(h) x 55.3(w) x 15.9-18.25(d)mm, 150g pocket-bulging package. The display is scaled down from the N97's 3.5-incher to a 3.2-inch screen on the Mini. It's a 640 x 360 pixels, 16.7 million colour screen that's lovely and bright, with a decent amount of clarity. It doesn't have the pixel count of the very best touchscreens on the market, but it looks good enough on this showing for multimedia playback and browsing.

The QWERTY keyboard has been given a makeover from the N97; gone is the five-way navigation pad, leaving a bit more finger-room for the 38 keys (which include direction keys). It has a much more usable feel, the rubber-like keys slightly less flush to the surface so you can feel more action as you type.The space bar is still shifted over to the right rather than central, and while that may not satisfy the touch-typist, it's very easy to get used to. And, in practice, it's rather useful when you're thumb typing when holding the device.

The screen still automatically tilts at an angle when the QWERTY keyboard slides out, with a reassuringly rock solid spring-loaded mechanism locking it in place.

The HTC HD Mini

The HTC HD Mini is to the HD2 what the iPhone Nano would be to the original iPhone. It's well-built and charmingly small, but its OS is too dated to ever enjoy very much. Window Mobile 6.5.3 is an albatross hanging around the HTC HD Mini's neck. With the HTC Sense interface, the phone is somewhat usable. But with the wondrous Windows Phone 7 , you can't seriously consider the HD Mini right off the bat. The OS is the dark flip side to the beautiful hardware.

The hardware is great. It's what we've come to know and love from HTC, scaling the HD2 to a more accessible size. It's an industrial one, the HD Mini. Certainly not sleek and sexy like the Legend, nor curved like the Desire. Exposed screws on each corner of the rubberized back plate give it a very masculine appearance—which I loved.

Underneath the cover lies a bright yellow inside, a hidden secret which I showed off to countless friends while testing it. The size of the phone is perfect, proving easier to handle than the 4.3-inch HD2, with the 3.2-inch capacitive HVGA screen more than big enough to browse and type on. It's bright until you hold the phone in the sun.

The screen is responsive, with haptics providing feedback—though I found it more difficult typing on the HD Mini than I did the Legend and Desire, often pressing the wrong letters.

Predictive text exists for a reason, but it did have me pining for my usual BlackBerry.

Few buttons live on the phone's case, with the left side containing volume keys and the top of the phone the on/off button. Five soft-touch keys are down the bottom of the phone, for calling, home, menu, back and hanging up.

A 600Mhz processor with 384MB of RAM should be adequate to drive a modern smartphone OS, but the lag was infuriating. Switching between programs, heck even scrolling through the sideways menu bar through Sense was a real hassle. Trying to read the Twitter feed, scrolling through the messages but encountering an almost-frozen screen resulted in me just not bothering after a while. The HD2 a Snapdragon processor and 448MB of RAM, which was "unbelievably fast," but with the slower processor the HD Mini is almost crippled by WinMo.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

At 4.7 inches long by 2.5 inches wide by 0.5 inch deep, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is only slightly larger than the iPhone.The X10 comes through with a 4-inch screen which makes it larger than most touch-screen phones currently on the market and a rich resolution (65,536 colors; 854x480 pixels). Graphics, photos, and colors are sharp and vibrant, and can see the display relatively well in direct light. The touch interface was accurate and responsive, both when tapping icons and swiping through long lists. It even was responsive at the very edges of the display. It weighs only about 4.8 ounces.

The X10's virtual keyboard is very close to the standard Android design, but it offers a few unique elements. In landscape mode it takes advantage of the display's full size so you have plenty of room for typing. There are three rows of alphabetic/punctuation keys with separate keyboards for numbers and symbols and other punctuation. You also get a special pop-up keyboard above the alphabetic buttons that includes smileys and some symbols. That's particularly convenient since it puts oft-used characters, like a dollar sign and parentheses, right on the main screen. The space bar is conveniently located in the center of the bottom row.

The X10 also has an autocomplete function and dictionary. Instead of just one possible choice when writing a word, the X10 offers up to 20 possible choices. For example, if you type "it" you get not only "its" as an option, but also "itself," "Italy," "item," and even "ignore." What's more, the X10 is adept at remembering previously used words and offering them as suggestions even if they aren't in the dictionary. After typing "germank" just once, we got it as a suggestion each time we started typing another word that begins with G.

Below the display are the X10's only physical controls. The Home key, back button, and menu control are large and tactile, so we had no trouble using them. On the left spine you'll find the volume rocker and a camera shutter. The latter is a rather small, but it didn't pose a problem. On the top of the phone are the 3.5mm headset jack, the power control, and the Micro-USB port for the charger and syncing cable. We give Sony Ericsson major points for ditching the proprietary connections and including a microSD card slot. The slot is located behind the battery cover, but we'll let that slide in this case since we aren't stuck with a Memory Stick Micro format.

Samsung Reality

Measuring 4.23 inches long by 2.09 inches wide by 0.65 inch thick, the Reality almost matches the Rogue in terms of shape and size. It shares the Rogue's same boxy look, with curved corners and rounded edges, though it is a little lighter at 4 ounces as opposed to the Rogue's 4.94. The Reality also has a decidedly glossier sheen all the way around, which makes it much more susceptible to fingerprint smudges. It comes in both black and red, and has an interesting grid pattern on the back.

The display is where we start to really see the difference between the Rogue and the Reality. Instead of the stunning 3.1-inch AMOLED of the Rogue, the Reality gets a relatively pedestrian 3-inch WQVGA display. This isn't to say it's bad-- we actually quite like the 262,000 color support and the 240x400-pixel resolution--but it just doesn't match up to the Rogue. You can adjust the backlight time, the shortcut icons on the main menu, the dial font size, the menu font style, the color of the lock screen font, the clock format on the home screen, and the transition effect between menus.

Like many other Samsung touch-screen phones, the Reality comes with the TouchWiz interface, which is a collapsible tray on the left side of the home screen that consists of several widgets and shortcuts. One of the widgets new to the Reality is a Communities widget that offers quick access to seven social networks and photo/video sharing sites, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Friendster, MySpace, PhotoBucket, and YouTube.


You can have up to three different home screens on the Reality, and the TouchWiz is accessible on all of them. You are also free to customize each home screen by dragging and dropping different shortcuts from the TouchWiz tray. Along the bottom row of each home screen are shortcuts to the phone dialer, the contacts list, the messaging menu, and the main menu. The phone dialer offers a roomy virtual keypad plus shortcuts to the contacts menu, groups, and favorites. You can also tap out a new text message via the virtual keypad and the T9 method if you don't want to use the physical keyboard for some reason.

The resistive touch screen is not as responsive as capacitive ones, but it's still intuitive and easy to use. You can add haptic and audio feedback to your finger taps if you'd like, and you can then adjust the vibration intensity, the sound effect, and the volume level.

Aside from the touch screen, you also get a few physical controls. There are the Send, Back/Clear, and End/Power keys underneath the display, and the volume rocker and screen lock key on the left spine. The charger jack is on the left side as well. On the right are the microSD card slot, the voice command key, the speakerphone key, and the camera/camcorder key. The speakerphone and voice command keys double as zoom controls for the camera. On the back is the camera lens and a self-portrait mirror. A 3.5-mm headset jack sits on top.

Slide the phone to the right, and you'll reveal a full four-row QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard is spacious and we like that each key is slightly raised above the surface for faster typing. There's a dedicated number row, a navigation array, and the typical shift and function keys. The A, W, S, D keys plus the navigation arrows are grayed out for gaming purposes. Unfortunately, the Reality's keyboard is much more cramped than the Rogue's and the keys themselves are smaller.

When you slide open the phone, the display changes orientation from portrait to landscape mode. The Reality also has an internal accelerometer that can change the screen's orientation without you having to open the phone, though this only works with certain applications, like the Web browser.

The Reality has a 1000-entry phone book with room in each entry for five numbers, two e-mail addresses, an instant-messaging screen name, two street addresses, a company title, a photo, a birthday, and a note. You can then assign contacts into groups and pair them with one of 17 ringtones and alerts.

Basic features include a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, a calendar, a calculator, an alarm clock, a stop watch, a world clock, a notepad, a sketchpad, and a timer. There's also voice command, USB mass storage mode, a file viewer that lets you read Microsoft Office documents, GPS with VZ Navigator support, and stereo Bluetooth.

HTC Droid Incredible

HTC-made, Verizon-locked device sporting a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 8GB of internal storage, 748MB of ROM, a microSD slot (with support for up to 32GB cards), an 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and autofocus, 480 x 800 AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, and most importantly, Android 2.1 with HTC's Sense UI on-board. The combo of America's largest (and some say best) 3G network with a super-fast, Sense-equipped Android phone is a match made in nerd heaven. We've seen a near-exact device in the HTC Desire -- basically the Incredible for the European market -- and the internals and screen technology are almost identical to the Nexus One, but the Incredible has a personality that's all its own.

In general, the Incredible's display was very reminiscent of the Nexus One screen -- that should come as no surprise, they're identical -- though the touch response seemed notably better here, likely a software issue. Because these displays are the same, it means they share the same issues; we disliked the color intensity on the Incredible just as we did on the Nexus One. Reds and oranges, in particularly, look overwhelmingly saturated here, and other colors aren't truly represented. It's just too colorful, if you can believe it. Another somewhat major issue that we struggled with on the Incredible (just as we did on the Nexus One) was the awful screen visibility in bright daylight. We had numerous occasions where we simply could not answer a call or take a picture due to the AMOLED display's poor showing outdoors. In overcast settings (such as the one above) it was usually bearable, and If you crank the brightness all the way up on sunnier days you can get some visibility, though once you're outside and can't see the display, that's a bit of a challenge. In all honesty, we love certain aspects of these screens, but we're perplexed as to why HTC continues to use this same display when it's clear the daylight performance is hamstrung.

The camera is one of the big selling points of the Incredible. At 8 megapixels, it's obviously one of the highest resolution smartphone shooters on the market. The Incredible also does fairly high resolution video -- up to 800 x 480. We would have liked to see a 720p option here, but we realize we're being hopeless romantics. Regardless, the higher res video did a decent, if somewhat pixelated and slightly stutttery, job at capturing a beautiful Brooklyn sunset. We had better results at VGA resolution, but both modes were more than acceptable for basic shooting. Just don't expect this to stand in for your HD camcorder.

In a somewhat new move for Android phone, HTC has equipped the Incredible with 8GB of internal storage as well as a MicroSD slot which can handle an additional 32GB -- giving you a whopping potential 40GB of space for your goods. We love the idea of a hardwired option for content storage, but HTC has some problems with this implementation. Firstly, many apps currently available in the Android Market which utilize an SD card for offloading data aren't able to see the internal storage at all, which means if you drag some APKs you want to install or want to download some data when you're in an app, you're out of luck.The earpiece on this device is loud and clear, but never painful on the 'drums, while the speakerphone is excellent for both conversations and video / audio playback. It's a really solid speaker which should be more than sufficient for conference callers and voracious media snackers alike.

The Sony Ericsson C905a

The Sony Ericsson C905a Cyber Shot is well knowned in the market for it's high quality 8.1 megapixel camera and it's 16X digital zoom. It also has image stabilization, auto focus, face detection and a xenon flash. It weighs 4.8 ounces and measures at 4.09 inches by 1.93 inches by 0.71 of an inch. It has a 2.4 inch display at 320 x 240 resolution.

The C905a is a Tri-band world phone which has a 3G for high speed wireless. It possesses a music player with streaming radio and built in FM radio. It also has a Music ID that can track the music you're listening to. C905a has a video share and also games like: puzzles, sport, action, cards, racing and more.......

As other cell phones this phone also comes with calender, alarm clock, personal organizer and address book. It also has handsfree speaker phone, voice dailing and voice commands. 

The facilities also include web browser and mobile email. As usual bluetooth is not a new item which is applicable to transfer datas and a short range wireless. Other facilities include call waiting, call barring, conference call and also call forwarding. You can also do multi tasking as using voice and data simultaneously. 

Motorola Droid

Motorola Droid's sleek, touch screen handset runs on Google's Android 2.0 operating system and features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, removable battery and preinstalled 16GB microSD card.

The Wi-Fi-enabled phone also comes with preinstalled Google Mobile apps, including a GPS-enabled Maps app that offers voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions. Users who text messaging but don't like paying fees will love the Google Talk app, which lets users to exchange instant messages with their Gmail contacts.

Capable of running six apps simultaneously, the Droid's 550MHz processor, high-speed 3G Internet and 3.7-inch screen make for a painless video-watching and Web browsing experience.

The Droid also features a 5.0-megapixel camera with LED flash, a mail app that integrates multiple accounts (including Microsoft Exchange) and Facebook and Twitter widgets that provide real-time updates -- performing like a small computer.

Droid inspires science-fiction visions of extra-terrestrials from faraway galaxies. The masculine, glossy black handset is chunkier than the iPhone, with a rectangular body and beveled edges. It's large, vibrant 3.7-inch screen takes up most of the front and toggles between horizontal and vertical view when the phone rotates -- all similar to the iPhone.

Designed with a minimalist flair, the Droid is slightly larger and heavier than the iPhone -- weighing 6 ounces compared to Apple's 4.8 ounce device -- for a solid feel.

Right next to the headset jack, the power button along the top edge of the phone also serves as a "wake" function. The volume rocker and dedicated camera shutter are located on the right edge. On the left side, a micro-USB port recharges the unit and connects it to a computer.

Four touch-sensitive keys sit just below the screen: "back," "menu" (with changing menu choices depending upon which screen is open), "home" and "search." Users can type on the phone's on-screen keyboard in vertical or horizontal view -- or they can use the roll-out keyboard.

When the Droid is opened, buttons on the keyboard are "sticky" and require a firm push or press -- adding to the solid feel of the phone. White and brown characters on the keys glow with a backlight, making them easy to read.

The wide keyboard was built for big hands, but small thumbs. That's because the keys are flush with the surface of the keypad and hard to distinguish. Users will get used to the feel of the keyboard, but first attempts at typing are awkward.

The keyboard can also be programmed with shortcuts to functions. To the right of the keyboard a directional key with center select greatly enhances navigation.

The back of the device features a 5.0-megapixel camera lens as well as the battery and memory card. The battery cover is user-friendly and comes off easily. Out of the box, the Motorola Droid comes with a standard Li-Ion Battery, USB/wall charger, 16GB microSD card and User Guide.

The Apple IPhone 4

The iPhone 4 is the biggest upgrade to Apple's smartphone since the iPhone 3G. It's also the showcase handset for Apple's newest operating system, iOS 4, which adds a selection of long-overdue features.

Though the iPhone 3G and the 3GS models simply tweaked the original handset's design, iPhone 4 marks a sharp departure from those previous models. Admittedly, we never had a problem with the look of the previous handsets, but we approve of the iPhone 4's changes. The front and back sides are glass, both surfaces are flat, and a stainless steel border circles the entire phone. Though it's a tad boxy, it also has a clean, svelte, and unmistakably Apple look. What's more, we love that the flat back means that the phone no longer wobbles when resting on a table. You can get the iPhone 4 in both black and white.

Despite the oleophobic coating on both the front and back sides, the glass attracts smudges by the ton.The iPhone 4 has a solid, sturdy feel, though we didn't love its sharp corners. It survived a few drops to a carpeted floor, but we wonder how it will withstand traveling in a pocket with keys and coins. Luckily, the Apple-supplied bumper will offer needed protection, even if it takes away from the handset's sleek profile.

At 4.5 inches tall by 2.3 inches wide by 0.37 inch deep, the iPhone 4 is as tall as the iPhone 3GS, but slightly thinner--25 percent, to be exact--and narrow when measured across its front face. It does feel smaller when compared with its predecessors. It weighs about 4.8 ounces, which is back to what we had with the first iPhone (both the 3G and 3GS models were slightly lighter).

The remaining exterior elements are largely unchanged. The Home button is in its normal place below the display; the 3.5mm headset jack and power key sit up top next to the aforementioned noise-cancellation microphone; and the 30-pin connector, microphone, and speaker are where they belong on the iPhone 4's bottom end. Unfortunately, and to no one's surprise, you still can't remove the battery.

Samsung Captiva

Part of the Galaxy S series, the Captivate is by far AT&T's most powerful and feature-rich Android device, boasting a gorgeous Super AMOLED touch screen, a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, and some great multimedia features. Captivate delivers and is a great alternative to the IPhone 4.

Like many of today's touch-screen smartphones, the Samsung Captivate features a slate design that's not particularly sexy. In fact, it's rather lackluster, but the look is clean and simple. At 4.18 inches tall by 2.5 inches wide by 0.39 inch deep, the device is a bit of a handful, but Samsung managed to keep the handset pretty thin, so you can still slip it into a pants pocket. Plus, the Captivate has a much more solid build than the Vibrant, which comes at a price of a little extra weight (4.5 ounces vs. 4.16 ounces), but we much prefer that to a cheap-feeling mobile.

The front of the device rocks a 4-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen, which supports 16 million colors and a WVGA resolution (480x800). It's one of the best-looking screens we've seen on a smartphone, showing off rich and vibrant colors and a sharpness that makes text easy to read. Aside from the brilliance and crispness of the display, there are a number of other advantages to Super AMOLED screens, including wider viewing angles and improved responsiveness. They also consume less power.

The Captivate's touch screen was responsive and fast. We were able to quickly swipe through the various home screens and menu pages, and the scrolling experience was smooth, as was the pinch-to-zoom gesture. The display also has a six-axis accelerometer, which comes in handy for gaming, and it was fast to change the screen orientation whenever we rotated the phone.

Below the screen, are four touch-sensitive Android shortcuts: menu, home, back, and search. On the left side, there's a volume rocker, and a power/lock button sits on the right. There's a 3.5mm headphone jack on top, as well as a Micro-USB port, which is protected by a sliding cover. As usual, the camera is found on back.

The RIM BlackBerry Torch 9800

The RIM BlackBerry Torch 9800 is the first device to ship running BlackBerry OS 6 and will be available starting August 12 for $199.99 with a two-year contract. The slider phone--a first for RIM--brings together a touch screen and a physical keyboard into a solid, compact design. The new OS brings some much-needed and welcome additions, including a better browser, an enhanced multimedia experience, and improved user interface. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, none of this is new but at least it puts RIM back on track. It's just unfortunate that RIM didn't upgrade other parts of the phone, such as the display and processor, as the Torch doesn't quite stack up to some of the latest smartphones. Still, there's enough there to keep BlackBerry fans happy.

The BlackBerry Torch marks new territory for RIM. It's the company's first slider phone and isn't meant to be a one-off design, but rather, the start of a new series. RIM and AT&T actually began work on the device about a year and a half ago, and when creating the phone part of the goal was to offer a design that not only combined the best of all worlds--touch screen, full keyboard, and track pad--but also a familiar experience to previous and current BlackBerry users.

The Torch's shape is a little bit BlackBerry Storm and a little bit BlackBerry Bold. The look is certainly appropriate for the corporate scene, where BlackBerrys still dominate. In its closed state, the Torch measures 4.4 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.6 inch thick and weighs 5.7 ounces. It's a rather hefty handset, but it feels very solid, with a textured soft-touch finish on back. It's also thin and short enough to comfortably slip into a pant pocket.

On front, the Torch features a 3.2-inch half-VGA (480x360 at 188 pixels per inch) capacitive touch screen. Overall, the display is clear and bright enough for reading text and viewing Web pages, photos, and video. However, compared with many of today's smartphones, such as the HTC Droid incredibleand Samsung Captivate, the difference in resolution is noticeable and Torch's screen falls a bit flat.

HTC Touch Diamond II

The HTC Touch Diamond2 is said to be the new evolution of the HTC Touch Diamond, that has been made easy to fit perfectly in the hands of the buyers. Touch Diamond2 has a larger 3.2 inch high resolution wide screen VGA display for a greater viewing area in a design just 137 mm thick. The Diamond 2 also includes a new touch sensitive zoom bar for even faster zooming of web pages, e-mails, text messages, photos or documents.

Combined with the HTC's Touh Flo's 3D experience with a people centric communication approach and the HTC's new Push Internet Technology, the Touch Diamond2 offers an advanced touch experience that is optimized for one-hand use operation.

The Touch Diamond2 brings the most sophisticated capabilities to a broad consumer audience looking for the professional benefits of a smartphone without a sacrificing size, looks or functionality with fifty-percent better battery life, a five mega-pixel auto focus camera, expandable memory, gravity sensor and an ambient light sensor.

HTC Aria

Android or iPhone? The Aria is an Android phone thrust into Apple's land, namely AT&T. As HTC's flagship phone, the device competes directly with the new iPhone 4.

They both have a large touch screen display, 5.0-megapixel cameras and music players, Wi-Fi and high-speed HSDPA Internet and Bluetooth and GPS capabilities.

But there are slight differences between the two -- the iPhone 4 has a higher-resolution screen, while the Aria has an expandable microSD slot. Android integrates Google's online services -- Gmail in particular -- along with a sense of openness and hardware choice. Apple's iPhone has a best-in-class user interface, a stylish build quality, the largest available mobile app catalog and tight media integration through iTunes.

There is no doubt these two phones are top-of-the-line. So smartphone buyers will, no doubt, be asking: How does the Aria stack up against the iPhone?HTC decided on a minimalist design. The Aria sports a black and chrome look, with a slytlish dark face. It's also small -- nearly 10 percent shorter and 20 percent lighter than the iPhone -- for a very pocketable and very good feel in even the smallest of hands.

But the trade-off is a smaller touch screen. And the Aria's 3.2-inch display is nearly a half-inch smaller than the iPhone's.Below the display, four capacitive-touch buttons -- home, menu, back and search -- are etched into the glass. They're completely smooth, which means users will have to look at which button they're pressing. An optical joystick below that helps users navigate through the menus.The back of the Aria has a 5.0-megapixel camera, without flash, and a speaker grille. When the back cover is removed, the battery and microSD card are revealed -- both which aren't accessible on the iPhone.

Around the sides of the device, there's a micro-USB port for charging and connecting to a computer, a 3.5mm headphone jack to use headphones and a volume rocker.Overall, the Aria is a well-designed visual package: from the hardware to the software, everything is black with chrome accents and gives a cohesive and professional feel, rivaling the industry-leading iPhone.It's also very light and won't put a strain on your hand if you talk for hours.

While the Aria is not a top-end smartphone, it can hold its own against its more expensive devices.Out of the box, the HTC Aria comes with a standard battery, USB wall charger, headphones and the customary user guides and manuals. and an envelope to recycle your old phone -- all encased in an eco-friendly package.

Samsung Monte S5620

The Monte S5620 is a newest touchscreen mobile that has all the features that a user requires. It has a front camera for 3G video calls. The screen is 3.0" which is big enough for using as a pocket PC. The screen keeps media consumption and the default widgets. This phone has converter application, YouTube, Google maps, Dictionary, Image Editor, Gmail(mobile version), Facebook and other more. The widgets are placed at the bottom, which is more accessible and the touchscreen works perfectly.

The phone might not be super fast in navigation but the irritating nature of the touchscreen malfucntions (accidental clicks etc) isn’t a problem anymore. The capacitive touchsceen here brings a lot of joy .However the weakness of Samsung’s OS can be seen with no full screen QWERTY accommodated on the 3″ display. At-least a landscape typing should have been enabled, but then this ain’t a smartphone that, rather something that would feel comfortable for first time touchscreen users to use. The T9 / keypad works fine for typing. The web browser is basic and gets the work done. YouTube.com works by loading videos on a YouTube player, however other video sites fail to work properly. I got audio from dekhona.com but video didn’t playback properly.

The addition of a 3.5mm audio jack is pleasant. The bundled headset along with the device is pretty neat and sound quality is good. You can record songs from FM. And our Sony Ericsson MW600 worked perfectly over bluetooth giving stereo output.
The 3.2 MP camera lacks flash or autofocus but a decent entry level camera. Overall the media features aren’t great but good enough to have.

Sony Ericcson Vivaz

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz is the HD-video-shooting successor to the Swedish-Japanese firm's flagship Satio model.

This phone has a 8.1MP camera that can also record 720p HD video,it has a feature of easy video uploadng which will be a thrilling experience to the You Tubers. This Sony Ericcson phone also has a 8GB memory card which may be more than ample for storage use.
The Sony Ericcson Vivaz is set to give a good market challenge to the Nokia X6 and the LG InTouch Max GW620. This touchscreen phone is designed for social-marketing and has great multimedia features.

This handset is really nice to hold and is properly designed for use.

LG ARENA GT950

The LG ARENA GT950 has a 3-inch touch screen with which the customers can have an easy access to the multimedias and entertainment. It has a superfast web browser with the AT&T's 7.2 HSPA 3G technology. The mulitmedias are quickly within reach with LG's 3D S-Class User Interface.

Customers can have a flying experience on the LG ARENA GT950 with a 3-inch WVGA screen. The mobile has a DVD- quality video shooting and can also shoot and share photos with it's 5.0 MP autofocus camera. With access to famous social networking sites, sending or posting tagged photos are made easy.

The LG ARENA GT-950 is also a TV-capable mobile to hit the stores it shows programs like FLO TV, including content from top entertainment brands such as ABC, ABC Entertainment, ABC Family, ABC News, ABC Sports, CBS, CBS College Sports, CBS News, CNBC, COMEDY CENTRAL, Disney Channel, Disney Channel Original Movies, ESPN, ESPNEWS, ESPN 2, FOX, FOX News Channel, FOX Sports, FUEL TV, msnbc, MTV, NBC, NBC 2Go, NBC News, NBC Sports, nickelodeon, Playhouse Disney, SOAPNet and the movie channel Crackle.

Nokia E-71

The Nokia E-71 is packed with a great combination of excellent features and looks. This smartphone is said to be the successors of E-62 and other smartphones. It has a much more rigid keyboard which makes typing messages and emails easier.

The company has said it to be the thinnest QWERTY Nokia smartphone in the market till date, which is hardly 10mm thick. Nokia E-71 has a dimension of 144 x 57 x 10mm and weight about 127 gm, which can be easily carried in your pockets, and has a glossy screen. It has a QGVA and the TFT, 16 M color screen supports 320 x 240 pixels resolutions.

The Nokia E-71 is equipped with 3.2 megapixel camera that has auto focus and flash. For videos, the VGA camera works at 22fps and it also has a secondary camera for video calls. E-71 is also packed with A2DP Bluetooth, A-GPS, Wi-Fi. For musics and miltimedia it has 110MB built-in memory and a microSD slot with expandable memory upto 8GB. It also comes with other plenty software for customers enjoyment.

Sony Ericsson Yari

Sony Ericsson Yari is specially for those who are into games. A phone completely loaded with games, from the desktop, has a sensitive motion affective screen. This phone is an easier way to jump into the game feature.

Yari has a motion sensitive game as similar as other smart phones, not just the Apple iPhone. For the graphics it's not so as to the imagination but is satisfying as needed. A motion sensitive game in the new Sony Ericsson Yari is bowling, where you swing the phone like a bowling ball and the motion is shown on the screen. Leave aside the graphics, Sony Ericsson Yari is a fun gaming mobile that will sweep every gamers off their feet. The Sony Ericsson Yari comes with some extra buttons for the games.

Apart the motion sensitive games, the Sony Ericsson Yari also has a decent set of multimedia features. It even has a 5 megapixel camera that has an auto focus and also a face and smile detector.Sony Ericsson Yari comes with a 1GB microSd card, instead of the usual M2 cards, for multimedias. The phone has a 2.4 QVGA screen.