The Smartphone War is Heating Up!

The past two weeks have been extremely eventful in the world of smartphones. New phones have been released or announced by most of the major cellphone vendors, all vying for a share of the fastest growing sector of the industry. In fact it is the only sector that managed to actually grow in the second half of 2008. You know, just about the time when the current worldwide recession began! Even this year, with the recession in full swing, the growth is still expected to be in the double-digits.

And one trend that seems to be emerging across the market is the rise of touchscreen phones. Those are always the ones that generate the most buzz before release, and are consequently in greatest demand. The manufacturers have certainly noticed this and are obliging us with a veritable feast this year! Every one of them has at least one high-end touch operated smartphone that is already in the market, or will be shortly.

Just as a note before I begin, since I'll be looking at fairly high-end phones, when I say "standard connectivity" I mean at least 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 and GPS. So with those facts giving some context to this discussion, allow me to introduce the contenders!

Apple iPhone 3G S

This "new" iPhone 3G S from Apple is, let's be honest, a faster iPhone 3G. There are some other hardware improvements like more storage space (16GB or 32GB), a digital compass and a better 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, but these - while welcome - are pretty much baseline features for high-end smartphones these days. In fact Apple isn't even trying to hide that fact by naming it the iPhone 3G S, where 'S' stands for speed. No really, it does. Even the marketing team that brought you the brilliant Mac vs. PC ads and those super slick iPhone ads could not come up with a better name than that.

Indeed, most of the improvements in the 3G S look like they are simply meant to bring the iPhone on par with its competitors in a checklist of features, thereby allowing the admittedly outstanding software and user interface to take centre stage. Previously missing software features such as cut/copy/paste and multitasking will be enabled for all iPhone users via a software update as well.

As pretty much every new smartphone being released is touted as an "iPhone killer", clearly this is the phone to beat. The iPhone 3G S will be released on the 19th of June in the USA and in July in South Africa from Vodacom.

Palm Pre

The Pre is the the latest phone from one of the earliest smartphone and PDA companies, Palm. The company has had a rough couple of years but they have come back with a bang. The new operating system, WebOS, leverages well known Internet standards such as javascript to produce an experience that is seamlessly integrated with the Web.

This is the phone that everyone hopes will finally begin to slow the iPhone's meteoric rise and challenge them to come up with more than simple iterative improvements. And with Palm being a Silicon Valley company well known for innovation, like Apple, it is quite possible. Feature-wise the Pre has all that the iPhone does, with the addition of a physical keyboard and the ability to run multiple applications simultaneously.

The Pre was released last Saturday, the 5th of June, and the reviews seem to indicate that the WebOS foundation is a worthy challenger to the iPhone's OSX, but some issues with the hardware and the dearth of 3rd party applications available at launch left some wanting more.

Nokia N97

The world's largest cellphone maker sure has a lot to prove with this new addition to their N-series multimedia smartphone lineup! With the other manufacturers nipping at its heels, Nokia has had to act fast to keep its position at the top. Released worldwide on the 9th of June, the N97 is a touchscreen enabled smartphone that runs the Symbian S60 v5 operating system.

It has the standard connectivity and comes with Nokia's response to the iPhone App Store installed - the Ovi Store. Since the store was launched only 2 weeks ago the selection of apps is limited at the moment, but will grow as more Symbian developers submit their apps for inclusion. The slide out landscape QWERTY keyboard with the angled screen is unique, and the widget based home screen and large amount of memory have been praised in early reviews.

However the relatively underpowered processor and resistive, non-multitouch screen are cited as holding the N97 back from achieving its full potential. Also there are some issues raised in reviews that seem to stem from the operating system not being fully optimised to utilise the touch based interface.

Samsung i8910 "Omnia HD"

The i8910 is a beast of a smartphone with all the features one has come to expect, plus it has the distinction of being the first smartphone to be able to record high definition video via its 8 megapixel camera! Running on a modified version of the same Symbian S60 v5 operating system that the N97 uses, it has a lot of things going for it - tons of Symbian apps, a fast processor, a beautiful 3.7" AMOLED (as opposed to a TFT LCD display) touchscreen and a polished 3D interface.

This phone was released about a month ago and is one of the least hyped, but most potent smartphones, in my opinion. However, it suffers from almost exactly the same usability issues as the N97, which can be attributed to the Symbian OS. Perhaps as more Symbian-based touchscreen devices released, the kinks will be worked out and the user experience will become more refined than it currently is.

HTC Touch Pro2

The Touch Pro2 is a Windows Mobile 6.1 (upgradeable to 6.5 when it is released) based smartphone that has a slide out QWERTY keypad similar to the one on the N97. It uses HTC's custom TouchFlo 3D interface which has received lots of praise. The Touch Pro2 can download applications via Microsoft's "Windows Marketplace for Mobile" and the selection of apps is good.

Apart from that it has the expected connectivity, but lacks in the media department since it doesn't have a separate 3.5mm audio jack and has limited video playback capabilities out of the box. Additionally the camera, while adequate, is hamstrung by the lack of a flash.

Other Unreleased Phones

Blackberry Storm 2

RIM's Blackberry line of business smartphones is well known for its vaunted push email service and last year saw the release of the first touchscreen device - the Storm. It was said to simulate the feel of pressing real buttons using its SurePress technology.

That, however, did not turn out to be the case as people found typing on the screen much more inconvenient than on other touchscreen phones. Additionally the lack of Wi-Fi capabilities severely limited it's connectivity options. It was back to the drawing board for RIM and now they have announced that a new Blackberry Storm is on the way, sans SurePress and with Wi-Fi!

Little more is known about this version, but you can bet that the lessons of the Storm have been learnt and that this will be a much more robust smartphone. The expected release is some time in the third quarter of this year.

Sony Ericsson Satio

This phone was announced earlier this year at the Mobile World Congress as the "Idou", but has been renamed "Satio", whatever that means. But naming aside, this looks like it could be an amazing smartphone. Again running on the Symbian S60 v5 platform, this phone has a ridiculous 12.1 megapixel camera with a xenon flash! That fact right there is enough for most fans of phone cameras to jump aboard, but add to that all the usual suspects for of connectivity and media playback and you have a recipe for a great all round smartphone.

Sony Ericsson desperately needs this phone to do well, since the Xperia X1 sold poorly and they haven't had a hit phone in quite a while. The Satio will be released around October of this year.

Samsung i7500 "Galaxy"

The Galaxy is Samsung's first smartphone powered by Google's Android operating system. It uses the updated 1.5 "cupcake" version and has an online app store called Market.

In addition to the standard connectivity, it has an external 3.5mm audio jack, unlike the Android powered HTC phones.It also uses a 3.2" AMOLED touchscreen which means that its battery life will be significantly better than that of some of its competitors. Add in a 5 megapixel camera and 8GB of storage and you have a very tempting cocktail! It's due out in July.

Wrap-Up

So there you have it. The latest and greatest smartphones from the biggest names in the business! There are a few I've left out, such as the HTC Touch Diamond2 and Touch HD, since they were too similar to the ones already included.

I'm sure you have noticed that almost all the phones discussed share a basic set of features and there's usually just one distinguishing feature that sets a particular model apart from the rest. This is how close the race has become! At the moment Apple is dominating this touchscreen market, but if it gets too comfortable any one of the contenders can dethrone it.

The Pre is, like the iPhone, backed by a small but innovative company and can offer a real viable alternative to it both in terms of features and the "cool" factor. RIM is trying to expand its user demographic for the Blackberry from purely business oriented people to the general public and the Storm 2 may be just the phone to do it with. Meanwhile other manufacturers are building on existing platforms such as Symbian, Windows Mobile and Android in the hope that a large enough user-base across multiple hardware providers will entice more developers to make applications for that ecosystem, since that is one of the major draws of the iPhone.

One thing is for sure, we live in interesting times. I'd like to hear what you think of all this so do comment!