Smartphone war heats up!

Unless you’ve been living in a bunker for the last two years, chances are that you may have noticed a massive expansion in phone technology. Yes that’s right, the current war for the smartphone market is starting to get serious, but can anything displace the current undisputed king of the next-gen handsets: The iPhone. For over 2 years now, since its release in 2007, the iPhone has held an unrivalled position at the top of the smartphone market. So far nothing has even come close to it, but things are slowly starting to change, the latest raft of handsets are showing significant promise. At the moment it looks like there are only two real contenders to the iPhone 3GS, they are the Palm Pre and the N900 handsets.

Touted as one of the most powerful multi-tasking handsets on the market, the Palm Pre has so far impressed, yet failed to achieve the notoriety it so richly deserves. So far most of the criticism I’ve seen is based purely on aesthetics, rather than on usability and functionality. As well as a 3.1” touchscreen, a 3 mega pixel camera with an LED flash, 8GB onboard memory and 5GB USB storage, Wi-Fi, 3G, an integrated message/email system all in spectacular 24-bit colour 320×480 resolution, the Palm Pre also boasts the ability to sufficiently multi-task apps and features, unlike the current generation of iPhones. The Palm Pre is currently available in the UK through operators O2. There are a series of contracts on offer depending upon whether you want an 18 month, or a 24 month contract. It also depends upon whether or not you’re prepared to pay an initial £95 for the handset. The standard contract provides you with 600 call minutes and 500 texts per month at £34.26 with a free handset.

The Palm Pre

The second real contender, the Nokia N900, is due to be released this week in the UK after delays were caused because of high demand. As of yet there is no contract information for the N900, but it widely believed to be working out a deal which will see the handset available through Vodafone on a £35/45 per month contract. The N900 technical stats are almost frightening; the camera comes with a 600MHz processor, 1GB of application memory, a 5 megapixel camera, 32GB internal storage, 3.5G, WLAN and Wi-Fi. The N900 is effectively a small personal computer equipped with touchscreen capabilities and a qwerty keyboard. Unlike the Palm Pre and other smartphones, the N900 is available as a pay as you go phone from the Nokia store and retails at roughly £500.

The Nokia N900

It’s clear that the war for the smartphones is entering an interesting new stage. It looks like manufacturers are now aiming at more multi media hand held computers, rather than aiming for a traditional phone format. Most smartphone also come with a huge range of tools and devices such as iTunes, Spotify, skype mobile and windows live messenger mobile. With technology and software now running at such a frantic pace we may eventually see personal computers supplanted by the rise of the smartphone…..

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