Smart Phone Palooza: 10 Hot Touch-Screens Compared

Curious how today’s latest touch-screen smart phones compare? With 10 popular models to choose from, it’s hard to keep track. But our charts will help you find the perfect touch-screen phone.

Keeping tabs on the latest cell phone models can be a full-time job, especially given the number of cell phones announced by Apple, Palm, Nokia and HTC (including, most recently, the BlackBerry-like T-Mobile Dash) over the past few months. But thanks to PC World, you don't have to hunt down and compare the various touch-screen smart phones yourself.

We pitted 10 recently announced touch-screen handhelds against each other to see how they would match up. Then we compiled a series of three comparison charts to help you decide whether an HTC Hero with a 5-megapixel camera suits you better than, say, a Nokia N97 with a stereo FM receiver. The charts provide quick answers to questions such as these: Which smart phones have on-screen keyboards and which have hardware keyboards? Which touch-screens are best at multimedia? How much does each one cost?

The first chart lists basic specs: manufacturer, carrier, platform, size, weight, type of keyboard, colors, price, availability and carrier). The second chart identifies the phones' multimedia capabilities (screen resolution, camera image resolution, autofocus, flash, video recording, secondary camera, audio jack and radio) and navigation smarts (GPS and geotagging). The third chart focuses on storage capacity (on-board and expandable), connectivity (3G, Bluetooth, USB and Wi-Fi) and battery features (removability, standby time and talk time).

The phones included in this roundup are Apple's iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G, the Palm Pre, two Symbian offerings (the Nokia N97 and the Nokia 5530), three devices running on Google Android (the HTC Hero, the T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the Samsung Galaxy) and two Windows Mobile smart phones (the HTC Touch Pro2 and the Samsung Omnia II).

Basic specs

If you're looking for a slim, pocket-size phone, consider the Samsung Galaxy [video] and the Samsung Omnia II: With a thickness of just 0.46 inch each, they're the slimmest units in our group, followed closely by the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS at 0.48 inch each. If you want a colorful phone, your best bet may be the Nokia 5530, which comes in five color combinations (and also weighs the least -- 3.8 ounces -- of any smart phone here).

Sending e-mail or text messages should be a breeze from any of these smart phones, but only three of them -- the Palm Pre, the Nokia N97 and the HTC Touch Pro2 -- have a full QWERTY keyboard. The Palm Pre has the smallest physical keyboard of the three, as it is oriented vertically.

The remaining seven smart phones feature touch-screen keyboards. Though typing on a glass/plastic screen takes some getting used to, your keyboarding speed should improve within a week or two. The software keyboards on the iPhone and Android phones are quite similar and they are designed to predict (and offer to complete) what you are typing as well as to make corrections.

Most smart phones are available from particular carriers at a much-reduced price when you make a two-year commitment to the carrier's wireless service. The overall cost of ownership thus depends on which call and data plan you choose. (For more information, see our buying guide, "How to Buy a Cell Phone.")

For a snapshot-style glimpse at the wireless network performance of AT&T, Sprint and Verizon on a particular day last spring in 13 major U.S. cities, see "A Day in the Life of 3G."

Specifications and prices for unreleased phones are subject to change by the manufacturer and by the wireless carrier. The prices and specifications listed here are correct as of July 1, 2009.

What good would a smart phone be without some cool multimedia features? All 10 of the touch-screen models here are solid overall, but not all of them deliver top-notch photos and videos.

The Nokia N97, the Samsung Galaxy and the Samsung Omnia II have the best three cameras. Each has a 5-megapixel lens, autofocus and an LED flash. The not-yet-released HTC Hero has a 5-megapixel camera, too, but no flash. Three of the 10 also have secondary front-facing cameras for video calls: the Nokia N97, the HTC Touch Pro2 and the Samsung Omnia II (see "Five Tips for Great Photos With Your Cell Phone").

The iPhone 3G and the Palm Pre are only smart phones in this group that can't record video (for the Pre, video recording is coming in a future update). The new iPhone 3GS adds video-editing features and can upload video directly to YouTube. Thanks to the 1.5 Android software update (see "Apple iPhone 3GS Takes Aim at ... the Flip?"), the three Google Android phones -- HTC Hero, T-Mobile myTouch 3G and Samsung Galaxy -- can upload video straight to YouTube as well.

GPS is very nearly a standard feature on touch-screen smart phones these days, with only the Nokia 5530 omitting the technology. And if you're a cell phone photo buff, you may be able to use your phone's built-in GPS capabilities to generate automatic tags (called geotags) that indicate where each picture is being taken. In addition, all phones except the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3G have an electronic compass option to identify the direction you're heading toward (see "Geotag Your Digital Photos").

Only three of the 10 smart phones -- the Nokia N97, the Nokia 5530 and the Samsung Omnia II -- come with an FM radio tuner. The tuner on the HTC Touch Pro2 is factory-locked, so your access to the feature depends on your wireless carrier. One nice Nokia N97 feature is its ability to stream music to your car radio via its built-in FM transmitter.

The T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the HTC Touch Pro2 are the only phones in our group that lack a 3.5 mm headphone jack. This is a common omission with HTC-manufactured phones, which instead depend on a proprietary USB connection to double up as a headphone port.

All 10 phones do a fairly good job of browsing the Web, though the two iPhones and the Palm Pre are at the top of the list. The HTC Hero will be the first model to offer built-in Adobe Flash support; other Android phones, along with Nokia and Palm models, will have the feature later this year. Currently, the Nokia N97 uses a scaled-down version of Flash called Flash Lite.

Connectivity, storage and battery

This year's smart phones are the best yet at conserving battery life. Large screens (like those on the iPhones and on the HTC Touch Pro2) tend to guzzle power, but handsets such as the Samsung offerings, which feature OLED screens, achieve long battery life. HTC claims that its HTC Hero will last for up to 10 hours of talk time hours or 750 hours of standby.

Smart phones that support multitasking, such as the Palm Pre, the Nokia N97 and the HTC Hero, tend to have shorter battery lives, owing to the power strain on the CPU. The only touch-screen smart phones in our review that come equipped with a nonremovable battery are the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 3G.

The models with the largest amount of storage space out of the box are the iPhone 3GS and Nokia N97, each of which has 32GB of built-in storage (the iPhone 3GS comes in a 16GB model as well). Except for the iPhone models and the Palm Pre, all of the smart phones support expanded storage via microSD cards; you can pick up a 4GB SanDisk microSD card today for $5 (excluding shipping and handling) from any of several online merchants.

Wi-Fi connectivity has become a standard across the board, as has 3G (except on the Nokia 5530). Even better, all of the phones support A2DP stereo Bluetooth connections, so you can listen to music on wireless headphones, in your car, or over other devices that support this technology (see "Next-Generation Stereo Bluetooth Headsets").

Another major factor to keep in mind when selecting a touch-screen mobile phone is applications. All of the phones discussed here run on sophisticated operating systems and application stores are at the core of improving their features. Apple pioneered the mobile app store with its iTunes App Store, which has tallied more than 1 billion downloads and contains more than 50,000 apps. Palm, Nokia and Google have followed Apple's lead by opening their own app stores, but as yet these have not attained the popularity or the number of applications that Apple's store enjoys. Microsoft is set to introduce its Windows Mobile Marketplace later on this year.

Bottom line

The right touch-screen smart phone for you depends on your tastes, needs and budget.

If you want lots of storage space so you can carry your music around with you, the 32GB iPhone 3GS or the Nokia N97 is a strong candidate.

If you take a lot of pictures, choosing a phone with a 5-megapixel camera -- like the Samsung Galaxy, the Samsung Omnia or the Nokia N97 -- is a good idea. If capturing video is more to your liking, the iPhone 3GS may be a good match: It shoots great video that you can edit on the fly and share with your friends or upload to YouTube.

If you do lots of e-mailing, texting and twittering, a phone with a physical keyboard -- such as the Palm Pre or the HTC Touch Pro2 -- is very useful. Typing on a virtual keyboard can become comfortable over time, but some people never grow to like it.

Whatever your preferences may be, look for a phone that complements them. And don't forget that you're not just buying a phone -- in many cases, you're also committing to one wireless service for the next two years. Take your time, and focus on getting the best combination of smart phone and carrier for your needs.

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How Much Does It Really Cost to Own a Smart Phone?

We compared the two-year total cost of ownership for eight of today's hottest smart phones and found that among the top-selling models there's really not much of a price difference at all.

Concerned about the long-term expense of owning a smart phone? You should be. But we found that, among the most popular smart phones on the market today, there isn't a big difference in the total cost of ownership (device, service contract and so on) over two years -- they all come in at around $3,800.

If you're looking for a less expensive smart phone, however, you might consider a lower-priced newcomer such as the Palm Pre or the HTC G1, which end up costing hundreds less than the more popular BlackBerry and iPhone models at the end of two years.

We compared the total cost of ownership for two years (the normal term of a wireless service contract), as well as the (amortized) monthly cost. For instance, you'll pay a total of $3,835.75 in the first two years with your new iPhone 3GS (16GB), or about $160 per month (and that's excluding the monthly smorgasbord of taxes, fees and surcharges you'll pay, which vary from locale to locale). For a lot of folks, the monthly smart phone bill can be as big as, say, a car payment.

On the other hand, Sprint is fighting for market share by offering the Palm Pre for a monthly cost of ownership of about $110. Similarly, you can own a T-Mobile HTC G1 for about $133 per month.

The biggest-selling smart phones on the market, however, bear strikingly similar two-year cost-of-ownership figures. The iPhone 3GS, the BlackBerry Curve from both AT&T and Verizon, the BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Tour from Verizon and the Nokia E71 from AT&T each cost between $150 and $160 per month to own. While the costs of the devices themselves vary, the unlimited voice, messaging and wireless broadband rates for the six AT&T and Verizon smart phones in our study are exactly the same.

Why is that? In the words of Verizon Wireless spokesperson Ken Muche: "It's a very competitive landscape." Wireless providers see an enormous amount of money to be made from selling high-profit-margin services such as wireless broadband and text messaging to smart phone users. Analysts will tell you, for example, that the immensely popular iPhone has almost single-handedly buoyed AT&T's wireless business for the past two years. And, of course, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon are fighting for every bit of that profit they can get.

Because of that profit potential and the fact that first-time smart phone buyers are constantly and increasingly being lured into the market, competition among the devices and related services is intense. Let's just hope that, with the entrance of more competitively priced challengers like the Palm Pre and HTC G1, the cost of ownership for smart phones in general will dip -- and that your smart phone bill will carry a little less sting at the end of the month.

By Mark Sullivan, PC World

法印寺佛法精進營

法印寺本周舉辦第一屆佛法精進營。除法印寺開山長老印海老和尚、住持宏正法師之外，也邀請南投德林念佛會住持從慈法師、南京大學哲學系副教授聖凱法師、芝加哥三慧學苑見寬法師前來授課。

印海長老表示，佛法精進營可以順利舉行，透過這些對漢語系佛教有所研究心得高僧大德的系列演講及佛法問答，必能增加學員的佛學知識。

除講課之外，每晚7時半至9時半，也增設佛學專題講座，歡迎有意修學佛法的民眾參加。

周二（21日）見寬法師談「禪」、周三（22日）從慈法師談「發揮生命之光」、周四（23日）印海長老談「淨土與唯識」、周五（24日）聖凱法師談「對治與淨化」、周六（25日）宏正法師談「學佛與自在生活」。

周日（26日，上午9至11時）聖凱法師談「老病死與生命的解脫」。

裝潢施工慎選承包商

不少華裔新移民均吃過「工程」、「裝潢」的悶虧，本是一家子飄洋過海「歡喜置屋」，最後落得對簿公堂，甚至理賠無門的窘況，多數出於過分輕信「名片」、廣告信，以及貪小便宜的心態。

不肖承包商常以一張帶有州政府執照號碼的名片、假保險單，四處招搖撞騙。有的施工前會要求預付30至40%的訂金，爾後捲款走人；有的藉機敲詐，不斷在施工期間索求增添材料費用。

包醫師剛在喜瑞都市購買新房，屋價高達60萬元，不料施工品質拙劣，全新的房子頓然面目全非。不但家中地板不平、牆壁歪斜，建商、賣方還相互推託，好心情全數幻滅。

更誇張的是，有些民眾過於信賴對方，甚至將家中鑰匙任意交出，並無親自監工，還曾發生返家後「人去樓空」，就連電視機也被「摸」走。

此外，像是油漆脫落、偷工減料、不照圖施工、工廠冷凍庫爆炸、著火等案例，不甚枚舉。

結構工程師方興表示，民眾不論是買新房、法拍屋，還是透過房屋經紀人置屋，最好雇用結構督察員（Structure Inspector）作完整評估報告。一旦發生糾紛，可向州政府（City Attorney）或執照局（Contractor State License Board）投訴，由政府出面。

同時，民眾承包工程前也需注意三點事項：首先，該承包商是否具有執照，並致電向州執照局確認。若期間施工不當，可向該局檢舉，吊銷執照。

第二，需向承包商要求責任險（Liability）和員工意外險（Worker Compensation）證明並複印查證。一旦施工期間發生意外，將由保險公司賠償。

第三，工程需依照加州建築條款規定，包括門窗等結構需保固四年，加入合約書中。同時一旦發生糾紛，要求由當地縣市政府仲裁，輸方必須支付所有律師費用。

第四，施工期間需不斷拍照存證，若對品質不滿，可立即以「掛號信」寄給承包商要求更正。施工完畢後聘請結構督察員（Third Party Inspector for Final Acceptance）驗收。

另外，若無暇對應保險公司理賠事宜，可聯絡專業調解律師（Professional Adjuster）出面，如The Greenspan公司，事成後對方將抽取3%至15%佣金，省下龐大律師費。