2009's Top High-End Touchscreen Phones
Nokia vs Apple - fight, fight, fight
Kit of the Year Our choices will be controversial, but for every Register Hardware reader irritated by Apple's command-and-control approach, dozens of phone users don't care so long as their handset delivers a high-quality smartphone experience. And the iPhone 3GS does deliver exactly that. It's not a phone for everyone - but then neither is Nokia's new N900. We like it, though, and all the other top-end touchscreen phones gathered here.
Incidentally, if Android is where you think the action is, or you prefer the stolid Windows Mobile, check out our 2009's Top Android Smartphones and 2009's Top Windows Mobile Smartphones selections.
iPhone 3GS
If you don’t already own an iPhone then the iPhone 3GS might well be the model that finally wears down your resistance. The camera is a weak point, but the iPhone’s great strength remains the sheer variety of features and software that it offers, and which make it vastly more versatile than most of its rivals. The 3GS' faster processor and graphics chip will further encourage developers to create new apps that will continue to enhance the iPhone’s versatility. Hugely popular, it’s undeniably the phone that sets the pace at the moment.
Read the full review here
Reg Rating 85%
Price Contract: from Free. PAYG: 16GB £440, 32GB £538. SIM-free: N/A
Nokia N900
Some may find the size a concern, but it's mainly a consequence of accommodating slide-out keyboard. In use, the keyboard, despite its compact layout, works very well and the camera is head and shoulders above what you'll find on the iPhone. Overall, the Nokia N900 is a joy to use and full of good things that we liked very much, though it still feels like something of a work in progress. The Maemo 5 OS is very promising on this evidence – fast and useable, once we'd got our heads around the basic set-up, and bound to be much more versatile in a few months' time as more apps and features are added.
Read the full review here
Reg Rating 85%
Price £440 (SIM-free)
Samsung Jet S8000
The Samsung S8000 Jet isn't a do-everything phone but it's still a very attractive handset, and certainly seems to deliver on its core offerings: speed and ease of use. The OLED screen is a gem and though we would have liked it to have been a smidgeon more touch-sensitive, it's great for viewing videos and web browsing. Our only real problem was the battery life, which didn't quite come up to expectations. All in all, it's a slick little media phone that delivers the fun stuff with style and flair.
Read the full review here
Reg Rating 85%
Price £330 (SIM-free) Click for the best online prices
Best of the Rest
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HTC Touch HD 2
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Blackberry Storm 2 9520
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LG Chocolate BL40
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COMMENTS
Smartphone
For me a smartphone means multitasking, and for that reason alone I will never consider the IPhone, and that's before I even begin to think about the non-removable battery, lack of expansion, poor camera, Apple's freaky control nature, etc.
I really don't give a damn about how shiney it may be. Sure for many it may be fine if their useage is limited, but I consider it so limited it's basically a toy and I'm utterly sick of hearing about how great it is over and over and over.
A bit crap...
First of all, the comments regarding the Jet are spot on. It's a feature phone, not a high end phone.
Secondly, the list is crap.
I'll accept the iPhone 3GS being on it. I don't like it, it doesn't multitask 3rd party apps, it has a crap camera and a low res screen and I feel it's a middle ground between feature phone and smart phone, but I can accept it. However, the N900 is too much of a beta to warrant 2nd place. It's just not ready yet to use a line from Grolsch adverts.
What should of been on there is one of the high end Symbian phones. My preference is the Satio, which is very very good, but the Samsung i8910 HD could have been on there, as could the Nokia X6. Hell, it's not high end, but the Nokia 5800 is a damn good phone - it's a fantastic musc phone, a fully fledged smartphone, better camera and screen than an iPhone. Not to mention it still has a whole load of apps.
Once again a pretty quick and dirty list with little thought. I'm disappointed vultures.
@Jim Coleman and Nigel Wright
If either of you had ever actually used an iPhone before discarding it for not meeting your arbitrary "it must have multitasking" spec sheet checklist, then you'd have realised that:
a) the iPhone *does* to multitasking where it matters, just not for 3rd party apps.
b) if you need to get your Twitter / IM etc updates in real time then push notifications does that for you much better than having to have all those clients running at the same time sucking your battery dry.
c) There really are very few cases where not having multitasking for 3rd party apps makes any difference at all. iPhone apps maintain state and you can switch between them as fast as you can switch apps on a WiMo phone so it's a non-issue.
But if you like to choose your phone by using a spec sheet checklist instead of whether they work and do what you need then don't let me stop you.
No they don't
Smartphones let you do smart things. For a definition of that, see the iPhone.
[ - awesome title goes here - ]
I am getting sick and tired of this constant barrage of iPhone is great vs iPhone is pants rants whenever a phone, be it smart or otherwise, is mentioned.
No phone will be all things to all people. What some phones lack in features they make up for in ease of use. What they lack in ease of use they make up for in slick design or i-want-one-of-those-so-much-i-could-bleed-from-ever-orifice-iness.
Sales figures don't lie. If the iPhone was rubbish it wouldn't sell. It does what a lot of people want their phone to do. Yes, there are phones that do more, better, all-at-once, but that doesn't mean that the person buying the iPhone would think it was a better phone for them personally if they ended up with something else.
Some people think locked = good. Some people don't want to take their phone apart, hack its source code, write their own custom apps and bore their friends with the amount of apps they can run at once while getting the highest score on a game, texting their friend, bluetoothing music to someone on the train, downloading email from 14 exchange servers etc.
If your phone is better than my phone, it's probably because my phone doesn't suit your needs, which is why you didn't buy it... just as I didn't buy yours because I thought it wouldn't suit the purpose for which I most use my phone.
I will be upgrading from a phone that doesn't sing and dance to a flavour of smartphone in the next few months. I will make an informed decision based on what I want it to do. Whether its an iPhone or not remains to be seen... but my decision wont be based on fashion, fanboism or the rantings of Apple/Android/WindowsMobile/Symbian users.
Just accept that people make their own decisions and shut up about it.
I probably wear some shirts you don't like; but that's not a good reason for you to rant at length about why you don't wear one just like it.
