If you're a mobile maniac like me, you too would be bored by old-fashioned ways to input information into your mobile devices, such as using a (ugh) keypad. As I witnessed firsthand in our nation's capital only a few days ago at Mobile Asia 2008, this year's theme is Next-Gen Technology. From what I gathered, touch-sensitivity seems to be the hot new trend, so I decided to compile a list of phones with this technology. In this first part I've chosen phones that use nothing but touchscreen technology as a data input/navigation method. No keypads here - at least, not the physical button kind.
Apple iPhone - 8GB (Rs 21,750), 16GB (Rs 29,000)
Apple's legendary iPhone is truly a marvel in modern mobile technology, with its superbly large 3.5 inch touch-sensitive display with a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels and 16 million colors. Just the fact that the display is touch-sensitive isn't enough; it's not like that's a revolutionary concept, but the iPhone also incorporates Multi-Touch as an input method and has an accelerometer sensor that automatically rotates the display according to how the device is held. It comes equipped with connectivity options like Bluetooth, USB (proprietary), EDGE and Wi-Fi support and multimedia diversity in the form of an iPod-like video and media player and a 2 megapixel camera. Google Maps and a YouTube browser are preloaded. The iPhone comes in three versions: 4GB, 8GB and now 16GB. The initial release of the iPhone left a lot to be desired, but with the latest firmware version things are looking up.
Samsung F490 - Launching in May (Approx. Rs 29,000)
The F490 doesn't have a keypad; but then that's why it's included in part one of this feature. It relies on its 3.3 inch touchscreen display. It has a resolution of 240 x 420 pixels and 256K colors. Like the iPhone, it has a 3.5mm earphone socket and a decent video and audio player. There's a 5 megapixel camera with flash, and a secondary camera for video calling (since it supports 3G). It also has HSDPA, Bluetooth with A2DP, and USB support. In case you need more than the existing 100MB of internal space, it also supports microSD cards.
LG Viewty - Rs 21,000
The Viewty is essentially a camera phone, with its 5 megapixel auto-focus camera with strobe flash. There's a secondary camera for video calling since it supports 3G with HSDPA. Other connectivity features include Bluetooth with A2DP, USB v2.0, and EDGE. The handset also supports microSD cards for external memory, and like the other two handsets in this feature, it has no keypad. It has a 3 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 240 x 400 pixels. The Viewty supports MP3, MPEG4, WMV, AAC, and DivX playback, and also has a voice recorder and integrated FM Radio. Handwriting recognition and photo-editing are also supported.
HTC Touch - Rs 16,200
The HTC touch is one of the slimmer and sleeker Windows Mobile devices. Though its functionality may need a bit of tweaking (and hopefully that's been taken care of already since our review) the phone does have some upsides. It uses Touch Flow system for navigating a few menus and runs on Windows Mobile 6.0 that obviously allows this. Interestingly, it has a hot-swap slot for not only a microSD card but also for the SIM card. There's a 2 megapixel camera with a video and music player, and a voice recorder. Like other Windows Mobile devices, it has handwriting recognition. Connectivity-wise it's well-equipped, with support for Wi-Fi, EDGE, Bluetooth and USB.
I'm sure there are a lot of people who'd like to know more about devices that don't require the use of keypads. If you can think of any more devices, do start a thread in our forums or leave a comment.
--
Aloysius
http://far1983.blogspot.com/
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