The Latest Smartphones

Timon Singh

Still holding on to your PDA insisting that it is the future? It's not. It's all about the latest smartphones. Combining the capabilities of a PDA, mobile operating systems and a mobile phone, smartphones have revolutionize how people conduct their professional and personal lives whilst on the move.

As a direct result, other technologies such as gaming systems like N-Gage, and now even sat-nav's, have been left in the dust as smartphone's multiple capabilities leave those solo-purpose devices redundant.

With their wide range of applications, smart phones are quickly becoming the 'must have' gizmo and it's a booming trade for producers. Last month, it was announced that the sale of virtual goods and add-ons such as online games, phone apps and digital gifts was set to exceed US$1 billion by the end of the year, showing the lucrative nature and popularity of smartphones.

Whilst Apple's iPhone has mostly dominated the market, we look at the latest smartphones that have been tipped to steal its crown.

 

Palm Pre

Dubbed the 'iPhone killer' upon its release, the Palm Pre's pre-order sales eclipsed that of the first generation iPhone within weeks.

Its biggest selling point is its operating system, webOS, which was built by Palm from the ground up specifically for this device. It aims to make it much easier for users to draw together social networking sites, disparate contacts, email accounts and other communication tools in to a single, unified platform.

Matching the iPhone for touchscreen innovation and offering a user-friendly interface, the Palm Pre was praised for its multi-tasking capability, which is said to be better than the iPhones.

 

Nokia N900

Originally criticised for their slowness at getting on the 'smartphone bandwagon' releasing phones Nokia dubbed 'communicators' or 'imaging phones', the world's largest provider of mobile phones wasn't going to be left out in the cold forever. Its N-series of 3G smartphones such as the N900 have received a lot of press because of their GPS functionality and OVI maps.

Nokia's most powerful smartphone yet, the device boasts a Maemo 5 open source operating system, which is a division of Nokia favorite Symbian. Because of specs such as a 600 MHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, 1 GB of application memory and a 3D graphics accelerator with OpenGL support, the N900 has been dubbed a 'mobile computer' by Nokia.

 

BlackBerry Storm 2

Research in Motion's Blackberry series has been among the most successful smartphones and the Storm 2 looks to continue this trend. The first Storm was criticised for the SurePress touch-screen interface, which forced users to "click" the entire screen to confirm a touch input, which compared to the intuitive iPhone seemed ridiculous.

The Storm 2 however changes that. With a much improved virtual keyboard, improved battery life, and a more sophisticated, easy-to-use interface the Storm 2 looks set to allow Blackberry to keep its best mobile email device title.

 

Motorola Droid

Motorola made a smart move by backing the Android platform and with the Droid have created their most advanced piece of technology. Teaming up with Verizon and Google, Motorola have finally created a device that could threaten the iPhone.

Google's Android 2.0 OS includes some enhancements such as the ability to zoom in on Web pages and photos by double-tapping on the screen and comes with a mapping application from Google that announces turn-by-turn directions.

With such diversity in the market, choosing the right smartphone for you can be quite a challenge as they all offer something different, but one thing is clear. Apple's iPhone is nowhere near as safe as it was a year ago as 'top smartphone'.

Relevant articles:

Palm Pre Vs iPhone | Nokia takes 'casulties' in Smartphone War | Smartphone market dominance