Top 10 Smartphones

 Apple iPhone 4S from £500
The odds were stacked against the iPhone 4S claiming the number one smartphone spot. But after putting it through a Tokeshi's Castle--style assault course with its fiercest rivals, there was only one conclusion- it remains the world's best all-round smartphone. Its imaging skills are class - leading thanks to a new 8MP camera, which has a wide f2.4 aperture and digital image stabilisation. The 3.5in, 326ppi screen remains the crispest in smart- world. And rivals still can't match its peerless sound quality, choice of apps or the charm of its voice-controlled Siri personal assistant.

!!! KILLER FEATURE The App Store, still out in front despite Amazon's Appstore

Samsung Galaxy S II £400
The Galaxy S 11 has it all: an incredibly vivid 4.3in screen, superb 8MP camera (with 1080p video shooting) and Android Gingerbread. After extended testing we've come around to thinking this is the Android phone to buy, although the iPhone still has better apps.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S £340
A major return to form for Sony Ericsson. The Arc S pushes the Galaxy S II close as the iPhone's main rival. lt has a dazzling 4.2in screen. and the impressive 8MP camera takes 30 panoramas. Only the Samsung's superior might and build give it the edge.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus £500
The first Android 4.0 'Ice Cream Sandwich' phone also sports the best phone display we've seen – a phenomenal 4.65in. 1280x720 pixel retina-pleaser.  Dual-core power makes it speedy too, but its build quality and camera don't quite match the best.

Nokia Lumina 800 £470
The Finns are back. Nokia's Windows Phone 7 flagship is a triumph. Thanks to its charming unibody build, vibrant 3.7in screen and increasingly capable 'Mango' OS, which now has Spotify. The dearth of apps, however, remains WP7's Achilles' heel.

HTC Sensation £345
The Sensation XE, which will bring a faster 1.5GHz processor and audio smarts from Beats Audio. But the original Sensation remains a fine Android buy, particularly with its price quickly dropping towards the £300 mark

BlackBerry Bold 9900 £455
If you're after a touchscreen phone will a physical QWERTY keyboard, buy this. The Bold combines a premium, stainless steel chassis with a slick new Blackberry 7 OS. Its diddy 2.8in screen is, though, a major handicap for enjoying media or web browsing.

HTC Titan £445
The aptly-named Titan is a Windows Phone 7 'Mango' pocket-hogger with a huge 4.7in screen. This is bright and crisp, though the 800x480 resolution can make text blocky, and storage maxes out at 16GB thanks to the lack of an SD card slot.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro £200
Compact, affordable, touchscreen Android phones with slide-out QWERTY keyboards are a rarity. But the Xperia Mini Pro fills this niche admirably. lts 1GHz processor runs Gingerbread smoothly, and only a sluggish camera shutter blots its copybook.

LG Optimus 3D £385

LG's glasses-free 3D phone trumps HTC's Evo 3D thanks to its bevy of pre – loaded games and a capable 3D camera. A dual-core processor means that performance is nippy too, and the long-awaited Android 2.3 update has now arrived.

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NAD Viso1

 More gadgets should be shaped like puddings.While the Lytro camera bears more than a passing resemblance to a Battenberg, NAD'snew iThing dock is quite clearly modelled on an Arctic Roll.

With a filling of NAD's delicious DirectDigital amplifier tech plus Bluetooth for wireless streaming, the cherry round theback of this particular hi-fi treat is an optical input for 24-bit/96kHz signalsfrom your TV. Blu-ray player or media streamer. Just don't try covering it incustard.

Price: 784 $

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Iris 9000

 It's hard to imagine Siri ever tryingto kill anybody. lt might tell you not to take an umbrella on a day when itends up raining the proverbial pets, but it's unlikely to eject you into deepspace. If you'd like

to give your iPhone's robot helper amore murderous edge, lookee here. The Iris 9000 speakerphone dock comes with aremote to act ivate Siri from anywhere in the room and a red 'eye' just likeHAL's that

flashes whenever Siri speaks.Altogether now: "open the pod bay doors".

Available for 60$.

Source : Stuff Magazin

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Swivl

After the success of The Only WayIs Essex,here at Stuff we've decided to make our own 'realitysoap'. Sadly, the budget for Made In Teddington doesn't stretch to acamera, let alone a crew, so we'll be filming it on our iPhones usinga Swivl to keep our characters in shot. Simply attach the sensor to yourclothes, position your phone or pocket camcorder in the cradleand it'll follow you around the room Well, if those perma- tanned Essextwonks can win a BAFTA for theirs, we can't fail.

The Swivl can be yours for 160$.
 

Source: Stuff Magazin

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HTC Touch HD

Performance
In the realms of technology, bigger doesn't necessarily translate to better, however, this is certainly true when comparing the Touch HD to its predecessor. Supporting the huge screen is a 528MHz Qualcomm processor and 288MB RAM, a significant increase in memory from the Diamond, and this results in the best performance we've seen for TouchFlo 3D to date. After an agonisingly long boot time, the Touch HD runs smoothly. Swiping from menu to menu is fluid and there is only a few instances, like starting and ending calls, which always tend to lag the interface.

Battery life is also light years better than the Diamond. Putting a 900mAh battery in the Diamond was a huge mistake by HTC, but this 50 per cent larger battery pays dividends, giving us at least three days between charges with moderate use. HTC rates the battery life at a whopping seven hours of talk-time.

As a media player, the Touch HD passes with flying colours, but still lacks the intuitive interface of the iPhone. YouTube videos look great and music sounds great, with thanks in part to HTC wisely including a 3.5mm headphone socket. Its finger-swiping media menus are definitely attractive, but switching between artists and albums can become tedious with the amount of input required to perform what is a simple task.

Its 5-megapixel camera also falls just short of the mark. Its interface is exactly as the iPhone's should be, with access to changing the white balance and image size, etc. Users can manually focus elements in the image by touching on the subject in the touchscreen viewfinder — a very cool touch — though this has little effect on the sharpness of the pictures this camera takes. Overall, the 5-megapixel camera takes mediocre pictures that lack natural colour and appear slightly blurry.

Design
Considering the announcement of the Palm Pre and the leaked images of the HTC road map, 2009 looks like the year everyone tries to out-play Apple with iPhone look-alikes. Last year, we saw touchscreens from Samsung, HTC and LG try to vary the formula, but with limited success compared to the front-runner. HTC has reconsidered its approach and the Touch HD is a fitting start to the year — it's shaped like an iPhone, but bigger.

Its 3.8-inch display is the biggest in this field and its WVGA (480x800) resolution is amongst the sharpest. Together these aspects add to make HTC's fantastic TouchFlo 3D interface look its best. With a screen this large and clear even some of the smallest areas of the interface are now finger-friendly. HTC includes a stylus with the handset, sheathed on the bottom right of the phone, but we've had no occasion to whip it out during our tests.

The Touch HD feels fantastic to hold. Though its 12mm depth is identical to the iPhone 3G, its design is slightly boxier, which helps make the Touch HD feel much less likely to slip from your grip. The front is a single piece of glass covering both the touch-active screen and four touch-sensitive keys below the screen, for dialling and exiting applications to the home screen.

The back of the Touch HD houses an auto-focusing 5-megapixel camera that sadly lacks a flash. A second front-facing camera lives above the large touchscreen and is used for video-calling. Under the battery cover we find a 1350mAh Li-on battery and the microSD card slot — an 8GB microSD is included with the phone. Also, HTC has included a 3.5mm headphone socket along with a separate USB port.

Features
The increase in size and improved camera module may give the false impression that the Touch HD is a vastly different smartphone experience to HTC's previously released Touch Diamond, but side by side these phone's aren't significantly different under the hood. Both phones run Windows Mobile 6.1 and feature a nearly identical suite of applications including Pocket Office supporting MS Office documents, ActivSync, a PDF reader, RSS feeder, a business card reader and a snazzy YouTube client.

The Touch HD also makes use of the same excellent Opera Mini web browser that we saw in the Diamond. While this browser may not feature the multi-touch "pinch and pull" zoom navigation of the iPhone's Safari browser, it has a decent alternative and renders full-sized web pages extremely well.

Like all smartphones in this segment, the Touch HD includes HSDPA technology for fast web browsing, Wi-Fi for accessing local networks and a built-in GPS receiver. Our review unit did not come with navigation software pre-installed, which is a shame considering the screen size. When its released exclusively with Telstra we won't see any dedicated nav-software installed; however, Telstra has confirmed that its WhereIs Navigator client will be available to download to the Touch HD in March.
Overall
Windows Mobile is still a less-than-perfect OS, but issues with WiMo are fewer than in previous HTC releases, and the Touch HD has certainly been a pleasure to review. Fashion-conscious business people who want a sexy phone that pulls its weight with business-focused features would be wise to check this one out.

Of course, you'll need to be a fashionable business person to pay the hefty AU$1,499 price tag, or to meet the AU$150 monthly contract payments with Telstra. These large, high-res screens don't come cheap, and we feel this pricing will sadly put the Touch HD out of the price range of many.

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Olloclip iPhone Camera Lens

Everybodyuses their phones now for doing pictures, filming, snapshots and the iPhone 4sis one of this phones that has one of the best cameras on the market.

If you are one of those people that uses theiriPhone a lot for taking pictures, the Olloclip iPhone Camera Lenswill be of big help for you. This is no ordinary fisheye lens, but is alsoa quick-connect lens system that will comprise of other lenses such aswide-angle and macro lenses, all crammed in a small and convenient package.

The Olloclip iPhone Camera Lensis very easy to use. Just slide it over your iPhone 4S or 4 rear camera lensand that’s all! With it you can capture aprox. 180 degree field of view and thewide angle lens could double the field of view. Also it has a super zoom in andout.

The Olloclip iPhone CameraLens can be bought for 69.99$ directly from the Olloclip site .

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Apple iPhone 4S

The new iPhone 4S has been the subject of many critics, good and bad, harsh comments and manyironies since its launch one month ago. That’s mainly because everybody wasexpecting an iPhone 5. Nevertheless, the 4S is significantly different, mostly underthe case.

So, if on the outside it’s just a regular iPhone4(just the mute button is 2mm lower) in the inside things are different. For starters,the core of the 4S is dual-core A5 (probably 1GHz), which you can find on theiPad2. The battery is said to have a lifetime of eight hours of 3G talk time.

With the iPhone 4S comes the new iOS 5 which has morethan 200 new features, the likes of Twitter integration and Apple’sBBMesque iMessage IM (instant messaging) application. And that’s not all! Apple also launches the CupertinoiCloud service, that offers free cloud service. Cupertino introduces Siri, anintelligent digital assistant for the iPhone 4S. It will help users makingcalls, sending messages, emails, schelduling  meetings, get directions, search the web etc.Probably the best thing of this program is that it understand context. Forexample, if you ask : ”Would I be needing a rain coat tomorow?”, Siriunderstands that you are looking for the weather forecast.

Does of you, who arepassionat about photographing the 4S comes with a new eight megapixel camera.The new iPhone also suports a new custom lens, a larger f/2.4 aperture and anadvanced hybrid infrared filter, all of them contributing to more realistic,brighter and sharper pictures. As for video, you can now record full HD (1080)pictures.

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Will There be a White Version of the iPhone 5?

It is not long now until Apple will unveil tothe world the next big thing in the world of smartphones, the iPhone 5, withthe phone expected to go on sale in October in most markets. Apple has beenkeeping pretty tight lipped about what the phone will be like and, despite aprototype allegedly being misplaced in a San Francisco tequila bar, not a greatdeal of reliable leaks have surfaced on the blogosphere, leading fans to relyon speculation and contradictory claims.

One of the rumours that is gaining the mostsupport is that the iPhone 5 will be bigger in some way or another. This willeither be through a larger body or, more likely through a larger screen but asimilar chassis size to the iPhone 4. With the increasing popularity of 4 inchplus Android phones like the Galaxy S2 it would make sense that Apple would tryto extend the display somewhat. Larger screens make for better entertainment devices,although Apple is not a company that likes to be seen following the lead ofothers.

In contrast to this rumour there has been muchtalk of a smaller iPhone making an appearance. This is supposedly the iPhone4S, which will be smaller in size and more modest in features and will be aimedat the more affordable section of the smartphone market which Apple hastypically ignored. There have been reports of smaller components being orderedby Apple from suppliers in Asia giving some credibility to this rumour,although it seems much more likely that this is for a more modest version ofthe iPhone 4 and not an entirely new model.

iOS 5 may give some indication as to what willbe on offer with the next iPhone, and the latest Apple operating system was unveileda couple of months ago. This comes with new usability improvements like theAndroid inspired notification tray, but also comes with support for iCloud andAndroid style homescreen widgets. While on the surface the changes made to iOS5 seem minor they may in fact drastically alter the experience that the iPhonehas to offer.

Many Applefanatics love having white versions of their iDevices and the iPhone is noexception. However, it took Apple nearly a year to release a white version ofthe iPhone 4 and so this will most likely not be on offer straight away for theiPhone 5. Like earlier releases the iPhone 5 will probably just be on offer ina choice of black only, although some reports are suggesting that the iPhone 5will feature an aluminium battery casing. If this is the case then the phonemay very well have a metallic appearance instead. If so then there may never bea white iPhone 5. Either way, you will have a long wait of uncertainty ahead,while you could just pick up some <a href="http://www.best-mobile-contracts.co.uk/phones/Apple-iPhone-4-White-16GB.aspx">iPhone4 White deals</a> instead, as these are expected to drop dramatically inprice when the new iPhone goes on sale.

Apple is expected to make an announcement aboutthe iPhone 5 in the coming weeks when we will finally get to see what the phonehas to offer. That is unless the missing prototype should somehow make anappearance online beforehand of course.

An article by Simon Drew

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HTC EVO 3D

This quite be the smartphone that may kick the iPhones’behind very hard. It is no surprise nowadays that the Taiwanese -based company isone of the top phone maker all around the world. So, why is this new toy thebest ever from HTC? Well, as the name tells us it has 3D technology not onlyfor the glasses-free screen, but also for the 3D camera(it also has a 2D 5MPcamera) 2MP. In addition the EVO uses a 1.2GHz dual-core processor , the latestAndroid version and one of the greatest features, it play movies at an incrediblequality and speed. The phone has many other apps that I will let you discoverfor yourself.

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iCloud

The iCloud is the highly waited and much rumoured wireless data sync service for iOS devices, Macs and PCs. It replaces the MobileMe service, which can not be classified as best from Apple, being much more low-cost( more exactly free). So what does the iCloud do? Well it synchronizes all your contacts, calendars and mail across your devices. If, for example, you create  a new contact on your iPhone, its automatically sent to the iCloud from where its synchronized with all your devices. This is not all, the “cloud “ can also store documents, bookmarks and books. Cool ain’t? Stay tuned on our site for more iCloud news this days.

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LG Optimus 3D

People just can’t get enough of the 3D mania. So like many of you expected 3D technology hit the smart phone market too. The most noticeable 3D phone is the LG Optimus 3D. It is an Android 2.2 phone with Nintendo 3DS-esque. It is glasses free. The magic starts when you turn it to landscape. With the help of a 5MP camera you can shoot 3D photos or record your own 3D movie. It has an on-board  8GB memory that you can extend using a microSD card. You can connect it to your 3D TV via HDMI 1.4 and watch the movies/pics that you took. It also has Wi-Fi, GPS,3G etc. and you can use it to make phone calls or send text messages too!

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Kee Desk Phone Dock

If the name hadn’t hit you, yeah, this is a dock for your iPhone. It has a classic handset for those times you miss using an old school phone for making your calls or you are talking to a potential annoying person you may not want to destroy your expensive phone by slam it down to a wall or something. Besides having a classic handset it also has a build in charger and that’s quite all. It has a pretty cool design also and it’s really cheap.

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