What Smart Phones You Should Buy

Customisable Home screens, skins and app storage can be tweaked

Web Browsing HSDPA equipped and offer exemplary browsing

Social Networking Adored by members of the always-on set

Fashionable You will see lots of these being flashed around

Apps A huge app store with plenty of new apps regulalrly added

Fun Good for gaming, music/video playback, travel, exercise, dining, social apps

Mature Beloved of very experienced users; i.e., older people

Nokia

• Business
• Device Range
• QWERTY
• Web Browsing
• Mature

Think Nokia and you get classic navigation, menus that have barely changed for years, and slim handsets like the Nokia 1100 (the biggest seller of all time; over 200 million units worldwide since 2003). Nokia is by far the world’s largest mobile device manufacturer, with a 33 percent market share. While it lags on smartphones, the consumer-focused N and business-orientated E series are both big sellers.

The Good: Nokia’s best are as solid as they are ubiquitous, and Symbian is the world’s most-used OS. The N series was the first to offer a good quality camera, music and video playback and GPS navigation, all on a decent-sized screen, plus old-school phone features. The most recent N97 is a solid all-round smartphone. The N900 with the Maemo OS rather than Symbian is more fun to use, and the full QWERTY on most of Nokia’s smartphones keeps them popular with business users, who don’t know what all the fuss about multi-tasking is: their Nokia’s done it for years.

The Bad: Nokia’s success owes more to loyalty than innovation. The handsets have looked and behaved the same for many years; the likes of the N900 seem incredibly clunky compared to sexier alternatives from Apple, HTC or RIM. Nokia has introduced touchscreens, but Symbian, as it stands, isn’t suited to touchscreen use. Nokia must get this: browsing, networking, quality apps and sublime user experience are now more important than familiarity and a camera with a Carl Zeiss lens.

What’s Next: Symbian 3 is Nokia’s latest hope. Reports do not suggest a great leap forward, but Nokia claims “over 100 usability improvements.” Due in early 2011 Symbian 4 should offer a more top-to-bottom reimagining of the elderly OS.

MeeGo, another open-source OS (a collaboration between Nokia and Intel, a development from the Maemo OS), is another reason to get excited. It one can be used across multiple platforms, from your satnav to your TV and, of course, smartphone. Its USP? An app downloaded on one device will work on all the others.

App store: ovi store Number of apps: 10,000+

What Nokia says about you…

You don’t like to faff. You’ve always had Nokia and you always will, because it’s reliable and gets the job done. And, usually, the camera’s pretty good too.

Our favourite handsets
NOKIA N97
NOKIA E72
NOKIA N900

WINMO

• Business
• Device Range
• Customisable
• Web Browsing
• Social Networking
• Mature

Ten years ago, when Microsoft Windows Mobile launched, people wanted the same systems they had on their PCs. WinMo offered scaled-down versions of its Office, Outlook and other programs in some of the first do-it-all devices (smartphones and PDAs). In 2004, it accounted for 23 percent of worldwide smartphone sales, but by 2008 this had almost halved. Partly because of greatly increased competition, but also because of Microsoft’s ongoing failure to keep its OS up-to-date in the face of that competition.

The Good: Business users are still drawn to WinMo’s corporate-like nature, which allows you to access work email, calendars, office desktop, plus view attachments in all Microsoft’s proprietary file formats. With newer builds of Windows Mobile 6.5, IE Mobile 6 and the likes of HTC’s HD2 and HD Mini’s Sense interface overlaid on its own, WinMo is finally starting to come into line with Apple and Android for ease and enjoyability of use. (By “come into line,” we mean “lag slightly less far behind.”)

The Bad: WinMo 6.5 retains many of the basic flaws of its earliest incarnations: excessive complexity, reliance on a stylus for touchscreens, lack of third-party – and, indeed, first-party – apps and grudging lip service to cameras, media players and anything that might be tentatively described as “fun.” The iPhone, Android and Nokia’s E series have all equalled it in most business users’ eyes. Not surprisingly, WinMo’s worldwide smartphone market share has fallen; it’s currently in fifth place with a 6.8 per cent share, according to Gartner.

What’s Next: Later this year Microsoft will finally start putting the Windows Phone 7 Series into mobile devices. Announced in February, the new OS has been built from scratch. That it’ll be integrated with the Xbox Live online gaming service and will offer greater social networking compatibility suggest the dull, workmanlike approach of yore has been consigned to the dustbin of history. With proper multi-touch support at last, hopefully the dreaded WinMo stylus will be joining it there.

App store: App Store for Windows Mobile Number of apps: 2,500

What WinMo says about you…

You crave security, know what you like and stick with it. You’re quite possibly an IT professional and your favourite wafer flavour is the standard salted.

Our favourite handsets
HTC HD2
Htc HD Mini
Samsung Omnia Pro

iPHONE

• Kudos
• Business
• Stylish
• Web Browsing
• Social Networking
• Fashionable
• Apps
• Fun
• Mature

A million sold in 74 days; 51 million since launch; four billion apps downloaded. The Apple iPhone was born as a fascinating mix of great features – multi-touch, integration between browser, phone, email, media player, and the iTunes Store – and with baffling omissions (most notably, cut-and-paste and 3G). Then 3G and the App Store were added, the iPhone became more a platform than a mere handset, and smartphones changed for ever. Now, it has the kind of brand awareness once enjoyed by the Walkman.

The Good: The iPhone can no longer be said to be in its “imperial phase.” However, it remains the benchmark thanks to its ease of use and its ever-expanding App Store. There’s now an app for every occasion, a game for every journey, and the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 keep the hardware and software improvements coming, subtly opening up new possibilities and keeping things running just that little bit more smoothly. Success breeds success, and any major app developer will look at the iPhone platform first before considering an Android, BlackBerry or Windows port.

The Bad: If you can’t upgrade to an iPhone 4, you may suffer from severe handset envy. The 3GS looks good but its salad days are behind it. And it still has many of the original iPhone flaws: relatively poor battery life, an afterthought of a camera and high price. And though the iPhone 4 is pretty much has the best specs available, it’s by no means leagues ahead of, say, the HTC Desire, and it’s likely to remain notably more expensive. We also resent the depressing peal of rumour and speculation that rings in each new iteration of the iPhone, but that’s a given, right?

What’s Next: The obvious next step? Add FaceTime support over 3G instead of just Wi-Fi. Soon, the first 4G networks will boost data speeds fivefold. An iPhone 5 with 4G connectivity could do for mobile video conferencing what 3G did for mobile web browsing. If Apple is serious about popularising it (it’s been around since 2003 and never caught on) maybe it can also find an elegant way to stand the iPhone 5 on a desk, so video calls can be made without the need to have it in your hand.

App store: The App Store Number of apps: 200,000

What iPhone says about you…