Nokia 5250 is a touch screen phone and the design is quite similar to previous touch device from this manufacturer. There are very few physical buttons and you have to use the touch screen for communicating with the phone. The size of the display is a bit small at 2.8 inches. Most music based phones have three inch or bigger sizes since they are extensively used for watching movies and videos. However, we are quite happy that the screen has a 16:9 aspect ration. The screen gives a resolution of 640×360 pixels which is quite good for this size. This resolution will give you a lot of space on the display for browsing the Web or working around with the documents.

Nokia 5250 runs on Symbian^1 (S60v5 Touch) OS and Nokia is giving Guitar Hero 5 Mobile for free. There is not much internal memory on the phone, you get just 51 MB but the microSD card slot accepts up to 16 GB cards. There is also FM radio, if you are bored with the onboard music. You will have to plug in the wired headset for FM tuner as it contains the antenna.

Nokia 5250 has a two megapixel camera which is a bit disappointing. 2 MP cameras are getting old and a lot of multimedia handsets are now putting a 3.2 MP camera for better photo quality. The camera can record videos too. For getting apps and games, there is the Ovi Store. This phone supports quad band GSM/EDGE networks and GPRS for the data. You can choose from four colors for the body – black, white, purple, and blue.

Nokia 2680 is one such low end cell phone which is pretty modest on features. Except for Bluetooth and speakerphone, there are no advanced features on the phone. There is a camera on the back but the quality is so poor that you’d never use it. The features are all slashed in order to give you a basic and entry level phone at a really low price.

Nokia 2680 has a really small one inch screen and the resolution too is really small at 128×160 pixels. Things are pretty miserable and cramped on this display but this is not unexpected in a low end cell phone. I found that the resolution was small even for composing messages. I wish the phone was a bit bigger though. The gadget is really small and I struggled to hold it well in my hands. A bigger size would have also given a bigger screen for the phone.

Nokia 2680 also has IM and e-mail support but I won’t recommend using it because the screen size is really small and the buttons on the navigation pad too are hard to press. The key pad is good only to compose text messages and nothing else. There are a couple of organizational features here like calendar, to-do list, notes, calculator, timer, stopwatch, alarm clock, etc. These organizational features are found on almost all

Nokia phones and hence there is nothing special about it. On the back, there is a camera but don’t get too ambitious. It is just a VGA camera which takes poor quality photos. The primary use of this camera is to attach photos to contacts for photo caller IDs and I won’t recommend using it for anything else. Also note that the camera can also record video but the quality is lack luster, just like the pics.

When tested for call quality, the Nokia 2680 was quite good. Calls sounded a bit tinny on my end but my friends said that they could hear me well and there were no major problems. The speaker phone quality is pretty bad. There was an irritating background hiss in my calls, my friends could hear them too. Occasionally, the audio trailed off and I had a difficult time trying to hear my friends on the other side. I don’t know if good speakerphone quality is important in a low end phone. Voice can be heard well over the handset and that may be enough for some people. This phone is yours for $79.99 from AT&T and the service provider offers a lot of pre-paid plans which you can check out on the Website.

Motorola Milestone XT720 looks really sleek but it is a bit odd for smartphone. The handset is 4.53 inches tall, 0.43 inch thick, 2.39 inches wide and weighs around 5.6 ounces. The design, just like other touch screen handsets, has a slate layout. I would have preferred a streamlined design here but this layout didn’t make much difference to my experience.

The display of the Motorola Milestone XT720 is 3.7 inches big with resolution of 480×854 pixels. The display is capacitive so you will get the same user experience as the iPhone. The text is really easy to read and the images too looked sharp on the display. The screen has a built in accelerometer which automatically changes the orientation when you tilt the device. The photos’ can also be pinched for zooming in and out. The screen is also responsive and quick, you will not have any problems with it. I was also glad to see that the manufacturer dumped Motoblur for Android since the interface is much cleaner.

The keyboard of the Motorola Milestone XT720 could have been better though. There is no physical keyboard so all you get is the virtual one for punching your text messages. Things got really cramped in the portrait mode but I had plenty of errors and mispresses in the landscape mode too. I won’t recommend you this phone if you are going to type a lot of messages.

Motorola Milestone XT720 comes with an app called My Sign. For launching certain apps, you just have to draw some doodles. For instance, drawing W will turn the Wi-Fi on/off and drawing V will start the voice mail. There are a few preloaded gestures but you can also make your own. You can’t just make these gestures on the homescreen, you will have to start the app first. According to me, this doesn’t save much time because you have to open the application anyways.

There are a few buttons underneath the screen which are typical Android ones – search, back, home and menu. They are all touch sensitive so you will get haptic feedback for your touches. There are a few physical buttons on the phone like camera button, volume rocker, and media gallery launcher. On the phone’s top, there is a 3.5 mm headphones jack, power/lock button, and HDMI port. On the phone’s left, there is the microUSB port.

Looks of this phone remind me of the Nexus One and it is a good thing because the N1 is really gorgeous. The handset is 4.7 inches tall, 0.5 inch thick, 2.4 inches wide and weighs around 4.76 ounces. It is not too big and not that small either. The screen of the phone is 3.7 inches and you get a resolution of 800×480 pixels. The display is really sharp and beautiful so videos, text, Web pages, photos, etc. will all look really good on the phone. The display is quite responsive and it supports pinch to zoom feature. This is a capacitive display and hence you will get an iPhone like experience.

HTC Desire has a physical buttons for search, back, menu, and home. On the left, there is a volume rocker along with a power button. On the top, there is a 3.5 mm headphones jack which lets you plug in any standard headphones on to the device. On the bottom, there is a microUSB port while on the back, you have the camera along with the flash.

The phone comes bundled along with wired stereo headset, USB cable, reference material, eight GB microSD card and AC adapter. The biggest difference between HTC Desire and the aforementioned HTC Nexus is that the former runs on HTC Sense instead of Android OS. I am a fan of Android OS especially because it is easy to get the updates. However, Sense is my favorite amongst all the custom skins because of the features it has which enhance the capabilities of the phone.

HTC Desire is runs on Android 2.1 and there will be Android 2.2 updates available later. U.S. Cellular hasn’t reveled when it will be done but I guess they should give it somewhere later this year. But till then, you will have to wait for the Flash Player 10 and other Froyo goodies. The Android experience on this phone is still very good and I liked the extras given by U.S. Cellular and HTC like My Contacts Backup, Navigator Deluxe, Peep, HTC’s Twitter client, etc.

Apart from that, the price of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is also a lot less than its predecessor. This handset is yours for $149 but you have to sign a service agreement with AT&T, the service provider. The original X10 costed a hefty $700 which would certainly make a big hole in your pocket. I am not saying that this handset is now perfect. I still have a couple of complaints. This handset is running on Android 1.6 which is seriously outdated. The latest version of Android is 2.2 but there are a few versions coming out with 2.0 and 2.1. So I think this is a bit unforgivable.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 also has the Timescape application which is similar to the one seen in MotoBlur. It takes all your e-mails, Facebook status updates, Tweets, text and multimedia messages, and then roll them into one steady stream for quick reference. It resembles a deck of cards, you have to move your finger over the screen in order to scroll through it. The application looks really funky and I liked it. I also these applications since they give you everything on your fingertip. But in case of Timescape, things got overwhelming because there was so much information crammed and hence I had a difficult time finding the things that I want. On the bright side, the screen is really big so you will be able to see a lot of information at a time. The big screen also comes in handy while typing long messages. The buttons get really spacious and hence there are fewer mishits.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 gives you three home screens for storing your widgets and short cut icons. High end smartphones have five home screens but I am not complaining here since three screens are enough. For accessing these screens, you have to flick your finger, just like most smartphones.

The display of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 only supports 65k colors which is a bit low considering the technology that other smartphones are using. Things on the phone look OK but they could have been better. The videos look crisp and the text too is easily readable.

3.5 mm headphones jack is located above the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and this lets you plug in any standard headphone set in to the device. I also liked its location, you can easily out the phone in your pocket and the wire won’t tangle at all. There are phones which have headphone ports on the sides or on the bottom. This makes things a bit difficult.

HTC EVO 4G has a really gorgeous display, and the processor too is really fast. 4G speeds are supposed to be much faster than that of 3G. We tested this and found that it was true but we had expected better. The handset also has a camera on the front for making video calls and on the back, there is an eight megapixel camera which takes stunning photos. The camera can also take HD videos and the quality is better than any video camera we have seen in the past. The display is 4.3 inches big and watching movies on it was an unforgettable experience.

Apart from that, the company has also seen a rise in total postpaid subscribers so maybe this is the reason why the losses were not as big as they were initially expected. Total number of wireless subscribers for Sprint right now are 48.2 million.

Unlocked iPhone comes at a big price. The high price is not surprising since unlocked phones usually make a hole in your wallet. We have reviewed unlocked HTC phones and have been struck by the high price at which they are offered. CBC News says that users will have to pay $549 for the 8GB, $779 for 32GB, and $659 for 16GB iPhone 3GS. All this is Canadian money though, convert it to US dollars and the price is $530, $753 and $637 respectively. There are carriers offering the gadget at a discounted price. We must say that our eye balls initially popped out when we heard that the iPhone would be offered unlocked. However, they went back in to the sockets when we heard about the high price. We won’t recommend you the iPhone simply because the price is a bit high. Getting it with the carrier seems to be the best deal. Some might still love the choice though.

It has been a while since Apple launched the iPhone 4 and it has made quite a lot of waves in the market. Some people are still drooling on the gorgeous retina display while some are complaining about the antenna. We think Apple iPhone 4 is worth the hype, it is a bit costly but we can confidently say that there has never been a phone like this till date in the market.

Thumbs Up:

Great AMOLED touch screen, 1 GHz fast processor, good call quality, the 5 MP camera captures HD video.

Thumbs Down:

The interface is better than earlier versions but it has a long way to go to compete with other phones, contact info is not merged from the different accounts, Samsung App store cannot be accessed from US.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: GSM global roaming (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), UMTS dual-band Asian/European 3G (2100/900 MHz)

Band: GSM/UMTS

Phone design: Candy bar

Caller ID: Yes

Other features: GPS, music player, camera, etc.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Samsung Wave GT-S8500 has a 3.3 inches AMOLED display with 480×800 pixels resolution, the camera has a five megapixels resolution with features like Panorama, GeoTagging, Blink shot, Smile detection, Face detection, Auto focus, and flash LED. The resolution for video is 1280×720 pixels or 720p HD. Supported video formats are WMV, XviD, DivX, H.264, H.263, MPEG4. Supported memory cards are microSDHC and microSD. The phone has built in 2 GB memory.

The handset is powered by 1000 MHz processor. For internet, the connectivity options include RSS, HTML, Dolphin Browser 2.0. Wi-Fi options are 802.11 b/g/n. There is also a 3.5 mm headphones jack. Phone book features are Caller groups, Multiple numbers per contact, Search by last/first name, Picture ID, and Ring ID. PIM features include World clock, Calculator, To do tasks, calendar, and alarm. E-mail options are Microsoft Exchange, SMTP, POP3, IMAP.

Razzle Dazzle:

Samsung Wave GT-S8500 may not be the sexiest smartphone out there like Droid X or HTC Evo 4G but buyers will still be attracted to it due to the compact size. The handset is 4.6 inches tall, 0.4 inch thick, 2.2 inches wide and feels very much good in the hand. The exterior is made up of aluminum and this gives a high end look to the phone.

Inside Dope:

We first saw the Samsung Wave GT-S8500 at Mobile World Congress 2010 and this is the first phone from Samsung to run the Bada OS. The OS is not on par with Google’s Android or Apple iOS but you will still get that smartphone experience irrespective of geographical location or cost. Samsung says that it is still pretty committed to Windows and Android Phone but still the new OS is pretty exciting. This phone is available unlocked for $370 to $400 which will certainly make a hole in your pocket.

The display of the Samsung Wave GT-S8500 is 3.3 inches big (measured diagonally) and it has a AMOLED touch screen. It supports 16 million colors along with WVGA resolution. There are plenty of goodies that come along with AMOLED display like better improved responsiveness and viewing angles. However, the best feature of this technology is the sharpness which is really good. The better quality certainly cannot be described in words here and if you haven’t checked out an AMOLED display yet, we will encourage you to do so. The colors literally jump out of the screen and the experience is really great even if the screen is a bit smaller than other high end phones. Finally, an AMOLED display, unlike standard LCD, can be easily viewed in bright sunlight.

Touch screen of the Samsung Wave GT-S8500 is very responsive and it gives a smooth scrolling and swiping experience. You can also pinch to zoom the images, just like iPhone. The screen orientation can be easily changed using the built in accelerometer. But we had a few problems with the virtual keyboard. For instance, the layout in portrait mode is a bit cramped and the letter keys too are quite tiny. We had a lot of mispresses and our typing too had to be slowed down. Things get a bit better in the landscape mode but it is still not as spacious as that ones on other smartphones and people with large fingers will have lots of problems using it.

There a few buttons below the screen like menu, talk and end/power buttons. On the left, there is a volume rocker and the right side has a lock and camera button. On the back, there is a five megapixel camera along with LED flash. On the front, there is a camera too for video calling. Finally, on the top, there is a 3.5 mm headphones jack, and microUSB port.

Samsung Wave GT-S8500 comes with wired stereo headset, USB cord, travel charger, reference manual and 1 GB microSD card. This handset is meant for international use and the charger is not compatible with USB wall outlets but you can still charge this phone on any computer using the USB port.

As mentioned earlier, Samsung Wave GT-S8500 is the first phone from the manufacturer to have a Bada mobile OS. Bada means ocean in Korean language and this term is used to refers to the ‘limitless variety’ of the platform. This OS certainly cannot compete with iPhone or Android OS but this handset aims to bring the smartphone to mid range users and hence some features are sacrificed. Some features on this OS which are common to others too include unified in-box, social networking and push calendar. Apart from that, Samsung also offers its own app store now.

There are some new widgets added which make it useful and nice but we wish there was support to add app shortcuts too. On the bottom, there is a toolbar along with quick launch buttons for messages, contacts and phone. On the top, there is a pull down tray which lets you manage the wireless connections, notifications, sound profile, just like Android. The main menu has attractive icons in a nice grid view. The apps are spread over lots of pages and you have to swipe to move through them.

Nitty Gritty:

This phone is made more for the international markets and hence we won’t recommend it to US users.

Below the screen, there are four touch sensitive buttons for search, menu, back and home. There are not too many physical buttons on the Samsung Vibrant but on the left, there is a volume rocker along with a power/lock key on the right. On the top, there is microUSB port right next to a 3.5 mm headphones jack. The camera, as usual, is located on the back but I was disappointed to see that there was no flash.

The features of Samsung Vibrant include multimedia and text messaging, voice dialling, conference calling, speakerphone and all possible wireless options – 3G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. GPS is also there onboard. There is no limit to the entries in the phone book and the SIM card can hold another 250 contacts. A single entry can take multiple phone numbers, photo caller IDs, group IDs, IM handles, e-mail addresses, etc. Contact information can also be merged from various accounts like Gmail, Outlook and Facebook.

I tried syncing my Twitter, Outlook, Yahoo and Gmail accounts to Samsung Vibrant and there were no problems. There were a few occasions when information of some of my friends didn’t merge but I won’t complain about that since I have seen that in other Android phones too. There is also some thing called Sweep feature for the Contacts app where in if you swipe left to right, the person’s number is automatically dialled and if you swipe from right to left, you get a message box.

Some applications worth talking about here are memo pad, voice recorder, calculator, visual voice mail, TeleNav GPS, Layar’s reality browser, ThinkFree Office Suite and Mini Diary app. There are tons of apps, both paid and free, that can be downloaded from the Android market. Samsung Vibrant has a five megapixel camera which supports HD video recording. You don’t get flash and because of this, photos in low light conditions are pretty awful. On the bright side, there are a few really good editing options like panorama mode, blink/smile detection, and ISO settings. Video quality is quite good considering this is a camera phone. For storing your photos, music and videos, there is a whopping 16 GB internal memory and the external card slot supports additional 32 GB cards.

Feature set on the LG Prime GoPhone include speakerphone, vibrate mode, multimedia and text messaging, calendar, alarm clock, notepad, world clock, calculator, tasks list, tip calculator, stopwatch, and unit converter. Some of the advanced features on the handset include voice command, voice recorder, FM radio, AT&T’s mobile e-mail for checking your personal e-mail, instant messaging, and Bluetooth. AT&T Social Net application gives you access to Web sites of social networking like Twitter and Facebook. Mobile e-mail service is really cool but it comes at a price of $5 a month.

LG Prime GoPhone is a touch screen phone and it comes with a HTML browser. I won’t recommend you to go for the full HTML one because the display is quite small and it has a resistive interface. There is no 3G either which makes matters worse. I could still use mobile versions of the Web sites quite well.

I was glad to see AT&T Mobile Music on LG Prime GoPhone. You can buy and download tracks from eMusic and Napster. Just like other packages of AT&T Mobile Music, you get a music fan community site, MusicID (song ID app), and other such music apps. Tracks can be transferred to the phone through microSD card or USB. Supported music formats are WMA, MP3, AAC+ and AAC. The internal memory is just 48 MB and the external slot can take up to 16 GB.

You get plethora of settings on the LG Prime GoPhone like five resolutions, three color effects, three quality modes, five presets for white balance (along with an auto setting), 10 seconds self timer, manual or automatic ISO, three shutter sounds along with a silent option, 2x digital zoom, etc.

Finally, I tested the LG Prime GoPhone for call quality and it was quite pleasant. On my side, the other party sounded quite good and the volume too was loud enough. But occasionally my friends sounded fuzzy and robotic. On their side, my friends said that my voice was machine like. They could still hear me clearly and the conversation was carried out without any problems. There was some static skip and occasional hiss but it is not a deal breaker. Speakerphone calls were below par though. My friends had to speak loudly and my voice sounded as if I was far away from the phone. On my side, the voice was clear and loud.

The LG Prime GoPhone has a 3.5 mm headphones jack which is always great as it lets you put in any standard headphones. When tested for the music quality, the tracks sounded brash and very loud. The bass and nuances were absent.