10 Hot Touchscreen Phones Compared

Keeping tabs on the latest cell phone models can be a full-time job, especially given the number of cell phones announced by Apple, Palm, Nokia, and HTC (including, most recently, the BlackBerry-like T-Mobile Dash) over the past few months. But thanks to PC World, you don't have to hunt down and compare the various touchscreen smartphones yourself.

By Daniel Ionescu
Thu, July 02, 2009

PC World — Keeping tabs on the latest cell phone models can be a full-time job, especially given the number of cell phones announced by Apple, Palm, Nokia, and HTC (including, most recently, the BlackBerry-like T-Mobile Dash) over the past few months. But thanks to PC World, you don't have to hunt down and compare the various touchscreen smartphones yourself.

Video: HTC launches the new Sense user interface
Slideshow: Smartphones: The 10 Hottest Handhelds

We pitted ten recently announced touchscreen handhelds against each other to see how they would match up. Then we compiled a series of three comparison charts to help you decide whether an HTC Hero with a 5-megapixel camera suits you better than, say, a Nokia N97 with a stereo FM receiver. The charts provide quick answers to questions such as these: Which smartphones have on-screen keyboards and which have hardware keyboards? Which touchscreens are best at multimedia? How much does each one cost?

The first chart lists basic specs: manufacturer, carrier, platform, size, weight, type of keyboard, colors, price, availability, and carrier). The second chart identifies the phones' multimedia capabilities (screen resolution, camera image resolution, autofocus, flash, video recording, secondary camera, audio jack, and radio) and navigation smarts (GPS and geotagging). The third chart focuses on storage capacity (on-board and expandable), connectivity (3G, Bluetooth, USB, and Wi-Fi), and battery features (removability, standby time, and talk time).

The phones included in this roundup are Apple's iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G, the Palm Pre, two Symbian offerings (the Nokia N97 and the Nokia 5530), three devices running on Google Android (the HTC Hero, the T-Mobile myTouch 3G, and the Samsung Galaxy), and two Windows Mobile smartphones (the HTC Touch Pro2 and the Samsung Omnia II).

Basic Specs

If you're looking for a slim, pocket-size phone, consider the Samsung Galaxy video and the Samsung Omnia II: With a thickness of just 0.46 inch each, they're the slimmest units in our group, followed closely by the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS at 0.48 inch each. If you want a colorful phone, your best bet may be the Nokia 5530, which comes in five color combinations (and also weighs the least of any smartphone here).

Sending e-mail or text messages should be a breeze from any of these smartphones, but only three of them have a full QWERTY keyboard: the Palm Pre, the Nokia N97, and the HTC Touch Pro2. The Palm Pre has the smallest physical keyboard of the three, as it is oriented vertically.

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