Gadgets

The Age

Thursday August 14, 2008

David Flynn

Amid all the hype and hoopla you could be forgiven for believing that the iPhone is the only touchscreen mobile phone in town. That's certainly not the case. Apple has undeniably popularised the touch panel as an alternative to the keyboard and also radically reinvented the mobile phone's interface. However, there are other ways to enjoy finger-friendly 3G goodness without buying into the Apple cult and without accepting the iPhone's numerous flaws. For example, each of the models here has a high-end camera, video recording, FM radio, memory card slot and works with Bluetooth stereo.

LG Secret mobile Gadgets

$899

secret.lgmobile.com

Available now through Three, Optus and Vodafone, the Secret is the third member of LG's swanky Black Label series. Its wafer-thin 11.5mm chassis packs a 5-megapixel camera and support for playing back DivX video downloads. The neon-blue backlight when you tap on-screen buttons is eye-catching. But there's no wi-fi and you'll definitely need a memory card to supplement the Secret's meagre 100MB of storage.

HTC Touch Diamond mobile

$999

htc.com/touchdiamond

This is easily one of the classiest touchphones ever, and we'd stack it up against the iPhone any day. It's also a little larger than you might at first desire but it feels superb in the hand and is crammed full of features, including a GPS receiver, 3.2-megapixel camera, wi-fi and 4GB of inbuilt memory. A sharp, lush 3-D interface hides the popular but clunky Windows Mobile from day-to-day use. The Touch Diamond will be available through Telstra from early August from $999 or on an $80 monthly contract.

Samsung Omnia mobile

Price to be announced

omnia.samsungmobile.com

Omnia is closest to the iPhone in design and base specs, such as an eight-centimetre screen and choice of 8GB or 16GB of memory. But it trumps the iPhone in just about every department: as well as wi-fi and GPS you get a five-megapixel camera plus DivX and XviD video playback. Samsung also introduces handy desktop-style widgets. Look out for the Omnia in September from Three, Optus and Virgin Mobile. -- DAVID FLYNN

© 2008 The Age

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