Latest Mobile Phone News

The elder statesman of our test, having been released way back in june 2010. the iPhone 4′s design remains unsurpassed, with its engineered glass front, metal edges anc almost excessively high-res screen still class-leading. Very effective multi-touch and Apple’s user-friendly iOS interface make it a breeze to navigate, with customisable home screens and folders for filing away all the games and apps downloaded from the App Store – still the finest and most well-stocked software source. At 3.7 inches the 960×640 screen is still the perfect size, in our judgement. Text is pin-sharp and colours bold, with the brightest whites and inkiest blacks on test. The iPhone 4 is being overtaken in spec terms by new dualcore Android phones but the 1GHz Apple A4 processor remains plenty quick.

Web pages load at speed and there’s seldom any appreciable lag. The upgrade to iOS 4.3 has added Personal Hotspot capability for tethering up to five devices over Wi-Fi, USB or Bluetooth. It connects smoothly but you need a pricey tethering account; currently Three and O2 are the only UK networks not to charge extra for it. Also included is AirPlay, allowing you to stream video, music and pictures to compatible docks or Apple TV. It’s a breeze to set up and works very well, though the list of compatible devices is considerably shorter than your arm. Show a little restraint and you’ll eke well over a day’s battery life. With 16GB and 32GB storage options, excellent sound and video quality and a camera that’s still as good as any you’ll find on a smartphone – the Nokia’s is just a smidgeon better, but no more – the iPhone 4 remains the best smartphone you can get. Some will resent the way it lies you to iTunes but to be honest, we can live with that.

Popularity: 5%

Windows Phone 7 could have improved on the WinMo of old simply by being usable by humans and not designed by a Joker-like sadist. It actually goes far further than that, being a lot of fun to use whilst retaining WinMo’s power. The tiled, fully-sustomisable home screen looks fantastic on the Venue Pro’s 41-inch AMOLED touchscreen. Pull it upwards and you reveal a full, if cramped. QWERTY keyboard. Live hubs, including People, Games. Pictures, Music and Video, Office and Market Place provide plenty of content, though without folders it can become cluttered. Enter Windows Live details and the Venue Pro automatically syncs with your Xbox Live account, allowing your avatar to roam about the homescreen. There’s a good selection of games available, many of them on a free trial basis.

Rumours of the Microsoft June’s demise abound, but it’s still alive and well in WP7 phones. PC users will need Zimc software to transfer media, whereas Mac users have the significantly less confusing Windows Phone 7 Connector. On a related note, the speaker is very bud and sound quality very good. The 1CHz processor is swift and the AMOLED screen crisper than ihe E7S. But the five-meg stills are disappointing, while the 720p video has a poor refresh rate, appearing blurred and marred by noise. There’s no doubt that Windows Phone 7 has the potential to pose a ihreat to Apple and Android. Office lets you view, modify and even create Excel, Powerpoint and Word docs and yes, you can cut and paste now. Dell‘s chunky hardware is perhaps not the best showcase for it, and third-party apps remain in comparatively short supply, but it’s still a very smart system.

Popularity: 4%

It seems that white is rapidly becoming the new black and Apple is one of the trail blazers. However, it was not an easy decision for Apple to come up with a white release of its only smartphone; the company had been procrastinating releasing a white model for over a year before they actually released one.

So what was the reason for the delay? Was it the marketing executives worrying about changing the image of the iphone4, concerned that the existence of a white version would detract from the sophisticated style of the black? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 4%

BlackBerry OS 6 comes to Bold, with redesigned icons and five home screens accessible via the strip at the bottom of the 3.2-inch screen. It lacks the level of customisation of Android but it’s a step in the right direction. Social Feeds, BlackBerry’s version of Friend Stream, aggregates your Facebook, Twitter, AIM, BlackBerry Messenger and Google Talk accounts very well and the QWERTY keyboard makes typing updates a speedy task. Despite being powered by a 624MHz processor the Bold never feels slow, perhaps because the smaller screen and absence of touch interfacing lowers both expectations and power requirements. The lack of a touchscreen also means the battery will last well in to its second day of use and once you become familiar with using the square, touch-sensitive trackpad, navigating pages is reasonably easy.

The tabbed browser makes swapping between pages less of a chore than on the iPhone too. The five-megapixel camera produces washed out shots that are weak in detail. Video is just 640×480. In other multimedia news, you get a basic music player with surprisingly decent sound quality and 12 presets for headphones. However, the Bald does the old-skool basics ol mobile phoning very well. Reception quality is good, messaging of all kinds, and particularly email, is excellent. The low cost and added social networking talents that come with OS 6 mean this will continue to find favour among young trendsetters as well as business users, even if some others find it all a bit old hat.

Popularity: 10%