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Apple iPad 2

demonblast — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:09:20 GMT

Images of a new iPad case have appeared online, prompting much speculation that the Apple iPad 2 is set to get expandable memory and a rear camera.

Apple fansite iLounge is reporting that Chinese manufacturer Shenzhen MacTop Electronics has shown off a new case that has space for a rear camera to poke out its head.

Thanks for the memory

A second case has also emerged that seems to show room for an SD card slot – this type of expandable memory would be welcomed but it's surprising if Apple has gone down this road.

None of Apple's iPods or iPhones have ever been given such a slot - and are unlikely to in the future, if we're honest.

Other marks on the case show off a new alignment for the iPad speaker and a pop-out door similar to what was found on the MacBook Air.

All of these 'new' features can be firmly labelled as rumours. However if true, the images of the cases would add flames to the likelihood of an iPad 2 will be released in the near future, with the first quarter of 2011 still a major possibility.

10 gadgets to look forward to in 2011

demonblast — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:06:37 GMT

While many people are waiting until Christmas to receive some of 2010's best gadgets and technology, we're already looking forward to 2011.

Around this time we always get more and more excited about the potential for each year to top the last.

Of course, 2010 has been pretty damn good for gadget lovers, what with the tablet revolution and 3D, but we have faith next year can top it thanks to these great products.

And this is still before all the CES 2011 announcements! Oh, it's going to be good…

Here are the 10 gadgets we're looking forward to.

1. BlackBerry Playbook

BlackBerry maker RIM has seemed a bit lost for the last couple of years, unsure whether to persevere with the style that always served it well or embrace touchscreens wholly. That quandary continues on its phones, but there's no doubting the focus of the PlayBook tablet.

A brand new operating system, an extremely powerful dual-core processor, all of the usual BlackBerry business features and, perhaps most importantly of all, a real focus on getting third-part developers involved.

The PlayBook is already looking stylish, slick and easy to use. With a carefully crafted tablet operating system and advanced specs, we could be looking at some major competition for the iPad.

2. Nintendo 3DS

If 2010 wasn't all about tablets, it was all about 3D. We've seen a huge push on 3D TVs, but some people just aren't on board with having to wear the glasses.

So while everyone else is battling the same problems Nintendo had when it released its first 3D console, the Virtual Boy, the 3DS is getting ready to bring a glasses-free third dimension (other than the regular, real-life one, obviously.

As if simple, comfortable 3D gaming wasn't enough, Nintendo is making sure the 3DS doesn't suffer the same lack of third-party titles the Wii has had (and the N64 had, and the Gamecube, now that we mention it). Some of the biggest names in gaming are already on board, including Metal Gear Solid and two absolutely stunning looking Resident Evil games.

3. LG Star

Nvidia's powerful Tegra 2 chipset has finally found its way into a phone, and that's a profoundly good thing. The LG Star's processor not only has the potential to be power-sipping, but it leaves opposing mobile processors weeping softly at their inadequate performance. Early reported benchmarks put it an entire league ahead of the best-performing Android phone to date.

Add to that the likely inclusion of the shiny new Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, an eight-megapixel video camera, 1080p video recording a four-inch screen and an HDMI out, and the Google Nexus S will be knocked of its throne as the king of Android before it's even got comfy.

4. iPad 2

Well, iPad 2 had to be here didn't it? It's not official yet, but the old 'smoke=fire' adage definitely applies when you've got the sheer volume of rumours we're currently hearing about an updated iPad.

Some of the rumours are more likely than others, but we feel confident you can expect to see a camera and FaceTime support, a gyroscope to match the iPhone 4, a faster (or possibly dual-core) processor and probably a new, sleeker design.

Considering just how good the current iPad is, we think there might a small amount of demand for the updated version.

5. Chrome OS netbooks

For those railing against the tablets and clinging onto their keyboards desperately, Google's promise of a range of Chrome OS laptops next year is welcome.

Aside from offering an alternative to Windows and Mac OS X with a well-known brand name, it should push forward acceptance of instant-on operating systems and cloud services as standard practice for PCs.

The Cr-48 prototype that's out now is a little bland, we'll grant you, but we're really looking forward to seeing what the big name manufacturers can do.

6. Motorola Android 3.0 tablet

Android's Andy Rubin showed off a Motorola-made tablet running an early build of Android 3.0 Honeycomb at the D:Dive into Mobile conference. And it really did look good.

The email app he showed certainly appeared to take a few cues from the way Apple tweaked the iPhone OS to work on iPad - and we're glad it did. Tablets with the usability and style of iOS with the options and power of Android?

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? We'll see in 2011.

7. PSP Phone

[Image credit: xxmajstor]

Considering that the iPhone is capable of games with graphics at the level of Infinity Blade, gamers must be drooling at the thought of adding buttons to what's already there. Apparently, someone at Sony finally had the same idea.

The PSP Phone looks certain to be released soon, and may be named the Zeus Z1. While we're a little nervous about the possibility of twin trackpads instead of analogue sticks, Sony console fans and phone gamers alike will both be eager to get their hands on this.

8. New HP/Palm devices

The Palm Pre 2 was a bit disappointing. It featured fairly current internal specs, but the design and screen both seem a little behind the best of current smartphones.

HP webOS, on the other hand, is brilliant. Its masterful and smooth handling of multitasking has the potential to knock everything else out of the park, it just needs the right hardware to bring it out.

Jon Rubinstein has confirmed that several new devices are on the way, including a tablet. With HP taking over hardware duties, we suspect something pretty special could be on the horizon.

9. ElectroHub wireless charger

While we've seen wireless charging concepts before – specifically the Powermat – but ElectroHub has a slightly better way of doing things. Simply stick the ElectroHub battery replacements into your devices and they'll work with the mat.

"Aha," you're probably thinking. "But my gadget has a non-replaceable battery." Well, then, you'll need some sort of case for making it work. A bit like the Powermat. But still, it's a better concept for getting your gadgets charged easily, and looks to be pretty reasonably priced, too.

10. iPhone 5

Finally, isn't every iPhone user looking forward to the iPhone 5? While the release date, specifications and even the form factor are still the subject of speculation and there are no hard facts, we've yet to see Apple disappoint with its iPhones. Antennagate aside, that is.

Review Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

demonblast — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:02:12 GMT

UPDATE: We've now got our hands on a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 complete with the Android 2.1 update - lets see if it's any better or whether it's pushed SE further behind the Android pack.

After a disappointing 2009 for Sony Ericsson, with the likes of the Satio failing to live up to its flagship billing, the Swedish-Japanese alliance is back with its first Android proposition - the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

It's got all the makings of a true classic - a whopping 4-inch screen, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and it's rocking Android with a cool overlay.

In short, since we first heard about it at the tail end of 2009, we've been excited to see if it can be the handset to return Sony Ericsson to the sharp end of the mobile phone game.

It's odd, but given the massive screen on the phone, the first thing you notice when looking at the Xperia X10 is not the screen - on our black review model the main thing is simply how shiny it is.

It's an understated phone, with a sharp, angular design and minimal buttons - in short, it looks like the kind of high-end handset we'd expect from one of the leading mobile manufacturers.

The screen dominates most of the front of the Xperia X10, and there are three buttons at the bottom, denoted as menu, home and back. (Albeit with some indecipherable symbols - what's wrong with actually writing 'Menu' and 'Home' on there?)

Between each of the front buttons there's a little LED, which glows brightly whenever the phone is used - a nice touch that adds a premium feel, although they can get a little annoying, especially in the dark - and it seems there's no way to turn them off.

The rest of the phone is pretty sparse - compared to the likes of the Sony Ericsson Satio and Vivaz, it's a little odd to only see a single camera shutter button on the right-hand side of the phone, with the volume up/down key above it at the other end.

On the top of the phone, there's the 3.5mm headphone jack, flush to the chassis, and the on/off button, which doubles as the lock key too.

It's a little far away from where you usually rest your hand, so you'll generally find yourself using your other hand to activate it - which is a little irritating.

The microUSB slot is located at the top as well under a dust cap - this is a little awkward to get off at times, and has a frustratingly short leash to keep it in place - meaning you have to really wedge it out of the way to connect up the charger.

There's nothing at all on the left-hand side of the Xperia X10, nor on the bottom, save a little grille to attach a lanyard if you're one of those that sees a big mobile as an ideal replacement for a necklace.

The back of the phone is slightly curved - we assume this is another corollary of the ergonomics study conducted by Sony Ericsson which led to the 'human curvature' of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz.

It does make it slightly nicer to hold in the hand admittedly - but it adds a lot of thickness to the device, which is 13mm.

When you consider the HTC HD2, which has a much larger 4.3-inch screen, is a couple of millimetres thinner at 11mm, it does make something of a difference with a device this size.

Overall though, it's not the worst looking phone in the world by a long way - it certainly doesn't overpower your hand when you're holding it, and the screen looks lovely and bright in use, without being dominated by the chassis.

In the box

Sony Ericsson usually chucks in everything it can find into the boxes of its phones, but with the Xperia X10 things are a little more minimalist.

Like HTC and Apple, the box for the X10 is coffin-like, with only basic cables inside.

The environmentally friendly idea of offering a microUSB cable with plug adaptor saves on needing an extra charger, but does get irritating when you keep having to go off and find the lead when transferring content.

Of course, it's probably easier to just perform the latter task by just connecting a memory card and transferring content that way - especially when you get an 8GB card in the box and Android is set up to connect up to your PC and easily copy content across.

Review Nokia N8

demonblast — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:59:37 GMT

Nokia's reputation as a leader in the smartphone market has been under increasing pressure in recent years, as a string of 'high end' handsets have failed to capture the minds and wallets of the phone-buying public.

So to fix that, Nokia's gone back to the drawing board to bring out the Nokia N8, featuring a new OS and a huge amount of high end tech packed under the hood.

Having announced the phone back in April, Nokia has been holding off on release to make sure the user experience is as good as possible.

But it needs to be very good indeed seeing as most other brands announce a phone then release it within weeks – we've been waiting nearly half a year for this one.

The underlying software has been improved and Symbian^3 builds on the previous iterations of the OS seen on the likes of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia X6, but adds in multiple home screens, widgets and an improved UI.

Hardware-wise, Nokia has pushed the boat out too with the new N8, offering a full metal chassis with anodised scratch-proof paint to give the phone a really high end feel.

It really is scratch-proof - rubbing keys on it produced no ill-effects, although the slider switch on the side can get its paint rubbed off over time.

However, with a 12MP camera with Xenon flash bolted on the back, it's not a super-slim device - it fits in the hand well enough but the dimensions 113.5 x 59 x 12.9 mm aren't going to rival the likes of the iPhone 4 and the Samsung Galaxy S, especially when being forced into more tightly fitting trousers.

The Nokia N8 also doesn't have a removable battery either - the full metal chassis is completely enclosed so unless you've got a very particular screwdriver, you're not getting in to replace any innards.

To that end, Nokia has put two hinged gates on the side of the N8, giving access to the microSD card slot and the SIM card port - both are quite hard to pull open (which isn't a bad thing as you're probably not going to be opening them very often) and clicking cards in can be tricky too without long fingernails.

The rest of the Nokia N8 continues the higher-end feel: the 3.5-inch capacitive OLED screen really pops with colour (although doesn't quite match the impressive sharpness of Samsung's Super AMOLED) and the minimalistic design sees only one rather functional-looking button on the front, eschewing the extra soft keys Nokia has implemented for so many years.

The right-hand side of the phone houses the camera key, which has staggered press levels to allow you to only push it down partway for autofocus. There's also a volume key with raised buttons, although these are fairly far away from each other, so can be hard to hit when you're not looking and trying to work out which one you're pressing.

There's also the slider switch on this side of the Nokia N8 - if you're a fan of physical unlocking, then this is a good example of that, although we prefer the on-screen offering, where a short tap unlocks the phone and works far more easily and effectively in our opinion.

The left-hand side of the Nokia N8 is a little more sleek, with only the aforementioned gates for microSD and SIM, as well as the uncovered microUSB slot, which may perturb some who are used to their Nokia phones having a gate on top to prevent dust creeping in. But has anyone really ever had a dust-destroyed port in the past?

The top of the N8 is where it mostly happens though - there's a mini HD port, the 3.5mm headphone jack and the power switch, which is also used to quickly change profiles when buzzing through the N8's interface.

The bottom houses the charger port - and it's a standard 2mm 'new Nokia charger' port, which initially seems like an odd choice when you can also charge through the microUSB port too, like all other phones, even when connected to a PC.

We can only assume that Nokia has done this so that when you're streaming over USB on the go (more on that later) you can keep charging the phone too.

But as we said before, the Nokia N8 sits in the hand well enough and allows you to access all the functions pretty easily and you don't need to jiggle it around in your palm too much.

In the box

Nokia has thrown a large range of toys in the box with the N8 - an adaptor to convert HDMI to mini HDMI, decent earbuds with an inline remote, a slim line Nokia pin charger and a USB lead with adaptor too to attach hard drives on the go..

This is all packaged in an eco-friendly slim box, and certainly looks premium and worth the money you'll need to be forking out.

HTC Desire HD review

demonblast — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:57:34 GMT

After the success of the HTC Desire, the Taiwanese firm is looking to take smartphones to the next level with the super-sized HTC Desire HD. But is it the next tech-filled talisman for the brand or a super-sized effort too far?

We've all seen the HTC HD2 and the HTC Evo, both with the same-sized 4.3-inch screens, and they were both successes, so it makes sense to continue that theme on the latest Android flagship phone, right?

Add to that it's got the overhauled Sense UI, with more new features than you can shake a techno-stick at, and there's a lot to be excited about with this new handset.

We're not sure if there's been some optimisation on the screen, but the 4.3-inch offering from HTC seems to be packing a better contrast ratio since we saw it a few weeks ago at the launch.

It still lacks the wow factor of the Samsung Galaxy S' Super AMOLED but it's certainly not a bad screen – just perhaps a bit light on the difference between the black and whites on the display.

But there are those out there that think that OLED screens are over-saturated anyway, so perhaps it will appease rather than disappoint some.

The slim dimensions (68mm x123mm x 11.8mm) are really important, and help to make the 4.3-inch screen more palatable to those that think it's simply too big.

It doesn't feel as skinny as the iPhone 4 or the Galaxy S (well, it isn't at 11.8mm) but it's perfectly pocketable.

The front of the Desire HD is mostly taken up by screen, as you can imagine when you have one as whopping as this.

The four touch sensitive options are all easy enough to press and light up when the phone is in use – we'd still rather they were the physical keys of the original Desire, as it's much easier to hit them without taking your eyes off the screen.

The dimensions of the phone are designed to minimise the trade-off of having a massive screen, but it only partly works.

Yes, the thin frame makes it nice to hold in the hand, but in the normal portrait mode it's still nigh on impossible to reach the top of the screen without jiggling the phone around in your hand – something that's never an issue on the sleek iPhone 4.

The top of the phone only houses the power/lock button, and like the HTC HD7, this is flush to the chassis and thus hard to even find, let alone hit without looking at times.

There's a massive volume rocker switch on the left hand side of the Desire HD, leaving the right hand side completely clean – no power or camera key here, which gives it a nice smooth finish.

Below the volume key is the battery cover – it's an odd one, as you have to yank it off and the battery then falls out, with no catch like on the HTC Legend.

It's even more confusing when there's a separate sliding cover on the bottom of the Desire HD to get to the microSD and SIM slots.

This cover isn't the best though – a few clicks on and off and we found it started to get a little loose, feeling creaky when gripped.

There's an odd choice from HTC when it comes to the 3.5mm headphone port, as it's on the bottom rather than the top of the phone, next to the microUSB port.

It means that the phone will be easier to pull out of your pocket already the right way up in your hand, but it just feels a little odd when 99% of other portable devices have it located on the top and out the way when holding it in the hand.

At least it's central, so it doesn't get in the way when you're holding it for video watching.

Around the back we're treated to an 8MP camera that also packs a dual LED flash, and also records HD footage at 720p resolution. There's also a small speaker that seems to be the main source of audio output – there's another on the front above the screen, but it feels like most of the sound pumps from the rear.

Review sharp galapagos

demonblast — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:53:25 GMT

Japanese tech giant Sharp announced it would launch a 5.5-inch and a 10.8-inch tablet named Galapagos, as well as an electronic bookstore in December â€” but only in Japan.

Both tablets will feature Wi-Fi communication and are Android-based; the smaller model will have a 1024 x 600 LCD screen, while the larger version will boast a 1366 x 800 pixel resolution. Both devices will be available in red, silver and black.

Despite the color LCD screens, Sharp emphasizes that these new devices are primarily e-readers. In December, Sharp will launch its e-bookstore, which will feature an â€œAutomatic Scheduled Delivery Serviceâ€ for periodicals as well as delivery of free trial versions of recommended content. The e-bookstore will feature some 30,000 books at launch, while Sharp plans to expand content to movies, music and games next year.

Sharp Galapagos | Tablets

Sharpâ€™s biggest competitors will be Apple, whose iPad was introduced in Japan four months ago, and Sony, which plans to launch its own e-book service before the end of the year, and has recently launched new versions of its three e-book readers. Sharp plans to sell 1 million units of the tablet, and is currently speaking to Verizon in the United States about a possible overseas launch.

For BlackBerry will make the "sympathy" smartphone

demonblast — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:26:30 GMT

American designers Kiki Tang and Daniel Yun introduced the concept of a smartphone BlackBerry Empathy ("Empathy"), which determines the mood of its owner, writes design blog Yanko Design. Concept was created in the competition held manufacturer of BlackBerry - the Canadian company RIM.

Person's mood will be determined by using the bundled with your smartphone biometric ring which will need to be the owner of Empathy.It reads the heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature and intensity of skin secretions. Based on this information, contact picture in the address book will surround the two rings of color: an inner will show a person's mood during the previous measurement, and external - how he feels at the moment.

View the history of mood altering your friends with this device, as well as find out how people reacted to a particular call or message, it will be a special chart. According to the authors, this system helps the unit automatically displays the device contact friends, communicate with which is better suited to his current emotional state.

The creators of the communicator said that they wanted to bring "real human spirit in the sphere of social networks and make real communication the most enjoyable and effective. It is planned that the system will integrate with the famous sotsseti Facebook and MySpace.
It is noted that the body of the communicator will be asymmetric. On the external panel will be located touch screen, and on the back - the screen and the QWERTY-keyboard. In real time, not famous for RIM plans to launch the model in the making.
That's because little by little, to quietly communicators and phones go to the new level of development. And perhaps in the future, they will not really just "feel" the proper owner, and give him what is useful advice, guidance and instructions to "imagine you are angry compress the device, but he" or she, as you like "you so dearly: "Honey, do not worry, you hand over the exam, and you've been in my brain!" Cool, right?

Review IPhone 4

demonblast — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:13:17 GMT

Apple's launch of the iPhone 4 has seen the greatest excitement for a new phone ever - and with HD video recording, a super high-res screen and ridiculously slim dimensions, it's not hard to see why.

But things are a little different now - not only was the IPhone 3GS something of a non-update to the iPhone range, but there are finally decent alternatives in the smartphone market, with the HTC Desire and Samsung Galaxy S leading the Android fight right to Apple's door.

Add to that the first major leak of an Apple product a couple of months before launch, and suddenly the iPhone 4 has a lot to do to impress.

At least Apple has unleashed the big guns for this effort - before we get into the headline specs, the design itself is a massive talking point on its own.

Jobs' chats on stage to unveil a new iPhone might have got a little repetitive (best this, magical that etc) but this is the first time since the first iPhone way back in January 2007 that we've seen a variation on the standard iPhone design.

Gone is the traditional curved back and plastic exterior with slightly chunky dimensions; in is a chassis that's only 9.3mm thin at its thickest point and a new stainless steel and glass industrial design.

If you're an iPhone fan, there's a good chance you won't like the look of the iPhone the first time you pick it up - it's the same weight as the iPhone 3GS at 137g, but it's a lot smaller, with dimensions of 115.2mm x58.6 mm x 9.3mm, so it feels like a much weightier and compact model.

The edges are stainless steel, apparently forged by winged unicorns in an iceberg (or something) to be 10 times stronger than 'normal' steel.

The front and back of the phone are made of glass, which has also been treated to be a lot stronger than the normal variety we're used to seeing through and drinking out of.

This claim holds up - not only did we feel the need to drop the phone onto the floor a few times to test, someone nameless of the TechRadar team also knocked it out (an admittedly low level) window onto concrete - and not a scratch.

If you're the protective type, then you can buy an official 'Bumper' for the iPhone 4, which encases it in a small ring of rubber, if you haven't bought the handset only for its slim lines.

The chassis shape isn't the only different thing with the iPhone 4 - the whole ethos has been tweaked. For instance, no longer is there a slightly plasticky rocker switch to control volume on the left-hand side, as it's now two discrete metal buttons with '+' and '-' written on.

The volume silencer rocker switch is above too, but that has also undergone the uber-metallic treatment.

The top of the phone still holds the headphone jack, and the power/lock key. However, the 3.5mm port is now flush to the chassis, and the power button feels much nicer to hit than before.

There's also a separate microphone for noise cancelling next to this as well - we imagine a few people will be pushing paperclips in there before they realise that it's not for the SIM card slot.

The right-hand side of the chassis is still blank - no camera button sadly, which would have been nice given the extra effort Apple has clearly put into overhauling the photography system.

Still, sleek is clearly still 'in' at the Cupertino HQ, and we can't say we blame the designers when you look at the lines.

Actually, that's not true - the micro-SIM slot is hidden away here, rather than on the top. It's the same pokey key thing/slot system as before, but this time the SIM card is much smaller - Apple says to make more room for stuff inside, we say it's just to shake things up a little bit. Either way, we bet micro-SIMs become the norm before very long in all phones.

The bottom of the phone has the familiar Apple connector for charging and connecting and docking etc, and is flanked by another more microphone-y looking microphone slot and the speaker.

The front still has that one iconic button, which is much nicer to press in the new chassis, it has to be said.

Overall, the design might not impress some people the first time they pick up the phone - a number of people we showed the phone to grimaced a little bit the first time they handled it.

It's a sharp and weighty-feeling phone, make no mistake - and it doesn't sit as comfortably in the hand as well as other iPhones of the past have.

But it feels premium, and at up to £600, it had better - that's a lot to pay when you consider you could get a 42-inch 1080p LCD for £200 less these days.

In the box

At least Apple has remained consistent when it comes to the packaging - apart from a new graphic on the front to make the new iPhone 4 look more mysterious, there's not a lot different to the older iPhones.

So that means: a simple Apple USB cable, a three-pin plug adaptor and some headphones. The latter is the same old set from the year before: hands free and a function button on the cord, but slightly poor quality compared to a range of other buds on the market.

Oh, you also get that little tool for removing the micro-SIM card as well - but Apple should just save itself some money and stick a paperclip in there, as 99.99% of people will lose that little thing, panic, then improvise anyway. Well, we have. Twice.

Review Samsuung Galaxy S

demonblast — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:04:38 GMT

The Samsung Galaxy S is meant to be the Korean firm's big assault on the smartphone market - packing oodles of top end technology into a handset it thinks can take on the Iphone 4.

There's more than just top end technology in here to beat the iPhone – the chassis looks decidedly similar too, despite the much larger screen, which comes in at a whopping four inches.

The feel of the frame is also odd, but in a good way. It's nearly a millimetre thicker than the iPhone 4 (we know, shocking) but it doesn't feel it, thanks to the curved back.

The downside of this construction is that it feels a little plasticky, which isn't the impression you're going for in a premium smartphone – but it is very light at only 118g.

The chrome bezel looks nice too, but it's the screen that it frames that really makes the Samsung Galaxy S.

While Google is intent on losing the custom overlays on modern Android smartphones, Samsung has finally decided to offer up its own skin for the search engine's mobile OS.

Known as TouchWiz 3.0, this skin is the evolution of efforts from a number of Samsung handsets – sadly most of which were pretty dire to use, with a range of widgets that underperformed compared to the competitors'.

This overlay was first used on the Samsung Wave, where new widgets were the order of the day – while these worked well, and 10 home screens was a bonus, on the Galaxy S you get seven displays to work with, and both widgets and icons alike.

The latter is great, as it means you can mess around with placement of your favourite applications. However, widgets are less of an attraction, with very few on offer from both Samsung and the default Android offering – certainly you get a lot more from the likes of the HTC Desire.

Things like Daily Briefing are very exact in what they offer – we would have preferred more customisation than simple weather and news updates, although RSS feeds are always handy, provided you have the nous to set them up.

But the interface on the Samsung Galaxy S is more than this; the large, capacitive touchscreen is just tops. We're not saying it's better than the iPhone 4, but for someone who's never picked up a touchscreen phone in their life, this cannot be beaten.

The lightest touch will produce an instant reaction, and coupled with the 1GHz processor from Samsung, the Galaxy S will rarely slow down from your input.

While we would have liked to see more from the menu system (we love swiping up from the bottom of the screen to activate the icon list), you have to hit the 'Applications' icon on the Home screen to do more.

Another feature we loved about the Samsung Wave was the intuitive menu system, where the most-used applications gradually moved to the top of the pile; sadly missing on the Galaxy S.

But the simple icons and pages way of navigating your applications makes sense, seeing as the iPhone 4 has had such runaway success with such a system.