I’m sure like most of you it took a little while to stop losing those tiny little styluses and when we started hearing about the phones of the future that would do away with them all we had to use was our finger (and don’t worry too much if it’s a bit oily), we couldn’t wait! I don’t know how many times I had to go to the T-Mobile center to keep replacing them and I got to know my salesman pretty well. Several years ago, he told me that Apple was working on something exciting that would do away with that pesky thinking device.
Now that the stylus is finally making its way to the files, the time couldn’t be better to start thinking about getting a touchscreen smartphone. Ever since Steve Jobs and his Apple empire brought the iPhone to market with their usual tidal wave marketing campaign, the competition has been rolling out their own cloned iPhone creations everywhere.
Many of the iPhone clones were nothing more than barely embellished feature phones. The LG Dare has a sleek and powerful touch option on Verizon, but the downside is a lower resolution screen than the all-powerful iPhone. Now, the Samsung Instinct is somewhat similar to the LG Dare, but the upside is that it’s a solid, affordable option for Sprint subscribers. From my perspective, Instinct is a better deal today for two reasons: It now works with the excellent Opera Mini 4.2 browser, and Sprint added wireless calendar sync with Microsoft Outlook and Exchange. I’ve personally had some issues with Sprint, but now they seem to be listening to what their customers want. Let’s hope that lasts.
Now for someone looking for a phone that supports third-party apps in the native settings, The Dare and the Instinct are not true smartphones. However, if you want a touchscreen smartphone, you still have plenty of options. Now, in addition to being a true touchscreen phone, the T-Mobile G1, Google’s first true Android smartphone, features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
As usual, Blackberry is moving to stay ahead with the BlackBerry Storm 9530. This will be the first touchscreen BlackBerry and puts its own version of the touch interface with its click-enabled LCD screen. Naturally, other companies are quickly jumping on the touchscreen craze, with touchscreen Windows Mobile phones like the slider HTC Touch Pro and the iPhone-esque Samsung Omnia. Both models make good use of the notoriously fiddly WM interface. Better late than never, Nokia has entered the fray after years of keyboard smart devices with the Symbian-based 5800 XPressMusic.
We will continue with the reviews of these smartphones later this week. I’m still waiting for the last one to come in to review.
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