EDMONTON - Is a touch cellphone for you?
Following Apple's hugely successful launch of its second-generation iPhone 3G, other big-name cellphone makers have introduced their own versions of touch phones. Touch phones have fewer buttons - usually just a power button and volume control - and rely on larger, touch-sensitive screens to run the phone's functions. This includes a touch keypad for dialing and typing, program navigation and Internet browsing.
I have been using the iPhone from Rogers, the HTC Diamond from Telus and the Samsung Instinct from Bell. Although all are considered touch phones, they are designed differently, in size and function. They have different operating systems but feature similar multimedia functions for songs, pictures and videos, as well as offering GPS, Bluetooth, speakerphones and onboard digital cameras. Their larger screens offer a richer Internet experience than smaller conventional cellphones.
These phones are media hungry and can quickly rack up big data charges. Make sure you get a data plan to keep your monthly billing low.
All companies offer a variety of data plans, including student rates, that allow variable e-mail and browsing combinations starting from $10 on top of your voice plan.
Deciding on the right one is not easy. "Today consumers should spend some time and find out what they want to do with their next cellphone before they buy," said Greg Milligan from Microsoft Canada Windows Mobile.
If you are a casual typist, with several e-mails a day and occasional texting, touch phones will do the job. If you type several hundred words a day and send thousands of text messages a month, look into phones with a built-in keyboard.
Touch-screen phones are easier and faster to use than traditional navigation buttons. All feature oversize batteries to keep their larger screens running as long as regular phones, and all can run multiple applications at once.
Here's my take on these finely engineered phones.
- Apple iPhone 3G, from Rogers, from $199 on a three-year plan:
This is the bulkiest cellphone with the largest screen. Its programs resemble Mac computers and iPod music players. It is the easiest touch phone to use, with the largest screen buttons and unique two-finger sliding that easily enlarges or shrinks web pages and pictures.
Browsing, unquestionably, is the best of any phone. It uses Rogers' 3G network, which works up to four times faster on sites like YouTube. A typical video started playing in less than 10 seconds and with twice the quality of the other two phones. It also includes WiFi, which enables you to access your home or an Internet hotspot for free.
The iPhone lets you set up Microsoft Exchange, mobileme, Gmail, Yahoo! and AOL, but Hotmail takes extra work using third-party online programs. The online iTunes Store experience is still the best and easiest to learn and use.
I would have liked larger onscreen keyboard buttons. My fingers kept missing the right letter. The easily accessible online App Store offers countless programs costing little or nothing to download.
It's as slick as the iTune store. It has a digital camera only; the others also shoot video.
- Samsung's Instinct, from Bell, $129.95 with three-year plan:
This is probably the closest challenger to the iPhone, although in some aspects it's still a distant second.
The phone is longer and narrower than the iPhone, but its wide screen is smaller, and the full computer-like HTML Internet experience can't match the iPhone's. But it has a better-designed, larger, full qwerty onscreen horizontal keyboard that works better than the iPhone's.
The screen vibrates when your finger touches it, and that makes for a more confident experience.
It also accepts optional external Micro SD cards (now getting to 8-GB size) compared with the iPhone's included internal 8- and 16-GB models.
It includes three essential touch buttons off the screen that work well with the screen's touch functions.
I liked the easy-to-use menu similar to the iPhone's, especially the "Fun" button, which takes you to a rich multimedia experience including live TV.
Despite its clean look, the proprietary Samsung operating system does not offer the third-party software experience of the iPhone and HTC Diamond Windows Mobile phones. Bell has a full-blown online music service but it's no match for iTunes. Oddly, it has Windows Live Messenger and Live Hotmail, which made me happy. It also comes with a stylus, but nowhere to store it.
- HTC Touch Diamond from Telus, $149.99 with a three year contract:
The phone's Microsoft Mobile 6.1 OS offers a mini-Windows experience. It's the smallest of the three phones, the slowest to respond and the warmest in your pocket. It has the best 3.2-megapixel digital camera, is EVDO-capable for fast Internet and has four GB of memory built-in, a good start, as well as an external Micro SD slot.
Unfortunately, the smaller screen accommodates a cellphone-like keypad that shares two letters on each screen button, so typing speed is diminished.
The phone has four push buttons and a four-way centre push navigation wheel, which essentially does what the touch screen does. It's strange to have an older analogue-style navigation wheel on what could have been a larger touch screen on the same-size phone. The magnetically stored stylus helps.
Still, the screen is the sharpest in this group and the mobile browser is second only to the iPhone's. There are more than 22,000 Windows Mobile applications you can download. The included Teeter game shows off the phone's ability to sense its screen orientation.
- In summary, if you love iPods and want the best browsing, go iPhone. If typing is your thing, go Instinct, and if you want a Windows-like experience with Office programs in a small, highest-quality touch screen, go HTC Touch Diamond.
From : http://nbbusinessjournal.canadaeast.com/front/article/402197
