THE HOTTEST SMARTPHONES OF SUMMER

Which smart-phones would you want to buy? Unless you are residing in the United States or some Western countries, you may not see some of these smart-phones in the market yet. PC World review, compare and contrast the hottest smart-phones of the Summer of 2009. (Original article, click here)

The four hot smart-phones are:

Apple iPhone 3G s

Nokia N97

Palm Pre
and
T-Mobile myTouch 3G;
each with a large touch displays, slim, pocketable designs and updated operating systems.

Let's see how PC World compares and contrast each, shall we? A symbol of (♥) indicates reviewer's favourite and winner on each category (sometimes, there is a tie)

CATEGORY 1: GENERAL APPEARANCE

iPhone - "Retains the same elegant design as the 3G model - the only difference is that the text on the 3G S’s backing is silver rather than gray" (♥)
Pre - "Glossy (albeit easily smudged) back cover and its curved ergonomic shape, but its construction feels a little cheap"
N97 - "Has a matte backing and a sturdy body, but it's a bit bulky due to its slide-out QWERTY keyboard"
myTouch - "Has a pronounced curve at the bottom, which makes for a comfortable thumb grip" (♥)

CATEGORY 2: WHAT RUNS IT?

iPhone - "ARM Cortex A8 microprocessor running at 600MHz with 256MB of RAM" (♥)
Pre - "TI processor running at 600MHz with 256MB of RAM"
N97 - "ARM 11 processor running at 434MHz with 128MB of RAM"
myTouch - "900/2100MHz processor with 288MB of RAM" (♥)

CATEGORY 3: THE WAY I TYPE

HARDWARE KEYBOARD

N97 - "The horizontal keyboard is superior, though it isn’t perfect. The edge of the display is too close to the top row of keys, and you can't adjust the display's angle or make it lie flat" (♥)
Pre - "The vertical slide-out QWERTY keyboard disappoints: slightly recessed, and the bezel lip on the sides and bottom often interferes with typing"

TOUCH TYPE

iPhone - "The portrait-oriented keyboard is slightly bigger, shows you the key you pressed and makes typing easier" (♥)
myTouch - "Got used to the software keyboard fairly quickly but it was a bit too tightly packed"

CATEGORY 4: THE HOME SCREENS

iPhone - "Has a more traditional smartphone home screen, with icons for the various applications in a grid" (♥)
Pre - "A Quick Launch bar runs along the bottom of the screen, giving you fast access to frequently used functions" (♥)
N97 - "has widgets that update your personal Internet feeds in real time on your home screen so that you don't have to open another app to access them"
myTouch - "While the N97’s live-feed widgets are useful, I like the overall look and customization abilities of the myTouch 3G" (♥)

CATEGORY 5: MULTITASKING

CARD VIEW (Palm Pre) vs PUSH NOTIFICATIONS (Apple iPhone 3G S)

Pre - "Pre’s deck-of-cards visualization makes multitasking simple and engaging" (♥)
iPhone - "While push notifications are a step in the right direction, it just isn’t the same as true multitasking, and therefore the Pre comes out on top"

NOTIFICATIONS (N97) vs NOTIFICATIONS (T-Mobile myTouch 3G)

N97 - "Doesn’t have a notification system (though some of your info, such as your Facebook account, does get updated in real time via the home screen’s live-feed widgets)"
myTouch - "Notifications pop up along the top of the myTouch’s display, alerting you to a new IM, e-mail, app update or the like. To view all of your notifications, you simply tap and pull down the notifications menu" (♥)

CATEGORY 6: MY CALENDAR APPS of iPhone vs myTouch

iPhone - "While it doesn’t receive a huge makeover in OS 3.0, it does get some more flexibility in terms of which calendars you can use" (♥)
myTouch - "Natively supports Google Calendar (obviously) and allows you to set up reminders that will pop up on your status bar via the notification system." (♥)

CATEGORY 7: GPS AND DIGITAL COMPASS of iPhone vs N97

iPhone - "The iPhone compass’s elegant interface -- and its integration into Google Maps on the iPhone 3G S" (♥)
N97 - "The N97’s compass is a tiny blip in the corner of the Nokia Maps application (which is actually very well-done)"

Here is the result of the review by PC World:

Apple iPhone 3G S (♥)(♥)(♥)(♥)(♥)(♥)
Palm Pre (♥)(♥)
Nokia N97 (♥)
T-Mobile myTouch 3G(♥)(♥)(♥)(♥)(♥)

After hearing the simple verdict by Ginny Mies of PC World, it is profound that iPhone 3G S and T-Mobile myTouch 3G may be the next phones to look for.

New technology applied in these smart-phones but what say you? Do you agree with PC World?