Pro Computer Geek

The HTC Desire is basically an enhanced Nexus One, which makes it possibly the most advanced phone available. It adds an optical trackpad in place of the Nexus One’s trackball, plus HTC’s excellent Sense user interface. Ergonomically, the HTC Desire just slips naturally into the hand with its all-round soft curves, on paper it’s slightly larger than the Nexus One but in real-life this isn’t noticeable.

The HTC Desire has a fantastic 3.7 inch widescreen, AMOLED display, delivering 720×480 pixels resolution. Arguably crisper and clearer than any other display on the market, it delivers touchscreen responsiveness definitely in the ballpark of the iPhone and, moreover, it is fast. The combination of Android 2.1 sitting above a Snapdragon CPU clocked at 1GHz with 512Mb of RAM and ROM really does enable you to zap through opening up applications and then moving between them.

Its multimedia credentials, are quietly competent rather than superb - such as the 5 megapixel, autofocus camera with LED flash and its 32GB memory card capacity. Where the Nexus One really impresses, though, is in what could be called its charisma, if it could walk into a crowded room, heads would most definitely turn. Its Teflon-coated back and sides are simultaneously rubbery and tough yet soft and almost sensuous, a strangely compelling tactile experience.

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From its spec, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is a smartphone to rival almost anything on the market, with an 8.1 megapixel camera with image stabilisation and face detection and most notably the ability to capture video in 720p HD (ultra-sharp, minimal to zero flicker). It also offers autofocus in its video mode and a dedicated video capture key. The results can be viewed on the 3.2 inch, 640×360 touchscreen or you can even entertain friends and family by displaying your captured images on your TV with the TV out connection.

At just 12.5mm in depth, the stylish Vivaz is conventionally smartphone sized and weighs only 97g (pretty amazing considering the technology within). All the usual smartphone features are included, including HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and A-GPS and the touch user interface allows you to use the handsets many functions easily and naturally.

The Vivaz is perfect for any business user with a document viewer, email client, organiser and WAP browser but the phones features do not end there; the innovative Media Go function is the perfect for all your entertainment needs and with an FM radio and MP3 player with PlayNow and TrackID it’s a great music phone. The battery gives up to 13 hours of talktime and 430 hours of standby.

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Free on an 18m contract from £30 per month.

The Nokia X6 16GB has an impressive 3.2 inch touchscreen that covers almost the entire front of the phone. It’s pocket and palm friendly measuring 111 x 51 x 13mm and it’s great for watching movies with the 16:9 aspect ratio screen. With 16GB of internal memory there’s plenty of storage too. The X6 runs on Symbian OS v9.4 and has a 434 MHz processor, which is enough to compete with many other smartphones in its class. The new X Series range from Nokia with replace the XpressMusic range, it will focus on entertainment and social networking.

The X6’s TFT capacitive touchscreen gives a crisp, bright image and comes with scratch resistant glass. There is a built in accelerometer for automatically switching the screen from portrait to landscape, for widescreen images and videos. For texts and emails the X6 also supports handwriting recognition. A 5 megapixel camera is the same unit from the N97, it has Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus, LED flash and geo-tagging to take fantastic images and stamp them with their exact time and location using GPS. The camera also has video recording capabilities and there is the ability to edit images with software provided.

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Free on O2 with 600 minutes and unlimited texts for £25 per month, plus you can claim 7 months half price line rental via cash back. Stock is due within a few days.

The Nokia X6 has an impressive 3.2 inch touchscreen that covers almost the entire front of the phone giving it a very innovative and unique design. The phone is pocket and palm friendly measuring 111 x 51 x 13mm and it’s great for watching movies with the 16:9 aspect ratio screen. With 32GB of internal memory there’s plenty of storage too. The X6 runs on Symbian OS v9.4 and has a 434 MHz processor, which is enough to compete with many of other smartphones on the market. The new X Series range from Nokia, will replace the XpressMusic range. As well as launching the X6, Nokia will release the entry-level X3 slider phone iearly in 2010.

The X6’s TFT capacitive touchscreen gives a crisp, bright image and comes with scratch resistant glass. There is a built in accelerometer for automatically switching the screen from portrait to landscape, for widescreen images and videos. For texts and emails the X6 also supports handwriting recognition. The 5 megapixel camera from the Nokia N97 is built-in, it has Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus, LED flash and geo-tagging to take fantastic images of your favourite moments and stamp them with their exact location. The camera also has video recording capabilities and there is the ability to edit images with software provided in the package.

Connectivity-wise, the Nokia X6 has all the usual feature you would expect in a smartphone, 3G, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a microUSB slot to transfer files with or without wires. To ensure you never get lost the X3 has Ovi maps 3.0 satellite navigation software pre-installed. The X6 combines style and technology to bring a fantastic, feature packed flagship phone to the X Series.

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Only £79.95 on Vodafone PAYG. The LG Pop GD510, according to LG, is the most compact 3 inch full touchscreen phone ever made. LG have compromised on some features to produce a phone that appears to be high end, but is priced in the mid range. The Pop looks fantastic with the 3 inch touchscreen covering almost all of the handset and just one multi-functional button used to start and end calls, or to access the menu. The brushed aluminium frame is only 4.8 mm wide and gives the GD510 a simple and sleek look that is sure to stand out.

The LG Pop has style over substance, making it an affordable touchscreen phone with some mid range features. It has a 3 megapixel camera to capture all those unexpected moments. There’s video recording and playback, an accelerometer, Bluetooth, a very nice MP3 player and an FM radio. Memory can be expanded to 32GB using a microSD card.

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The Google Nexus One is now available SIM free at Pixmania for £599 plus delivery.

Manufacturered by HTC, Google’s first own-brand mobile phone is undoubtedly a superb piece of engineering. Ergonomically, it just slips naturally into the hand with its all-round soft curves rather than the hard edges of, say the Motorola Milestone. At 130g the Nexus One is lighter than an iPhone (136g) and Milestone (170g) as well as being narrower and thinner (at 11.5mm) than these two most striking competitors.

It has a fantastic 3.7 inch widescreen, AMOLED display, delivering 720×480 pixels resolution. Arguably crisper and clearer than any other display on the market, it delivers touchscreen responsiveness definitely in the ballpark of the iPhone and, moreover, it is fast. The combination of Android 2.1 sitting above a Snapdragon CPU clocked at 1GHz with 512Mb of RAM and ROM really does enable you to zap through opening up applications and then moving between them.

Its multimedia credentials, are quietly competent rather than superb - such as the 5 megapixel, autofocus camera with LED flash and its 32GB memory card capacity. Where the Nexus One really impresses, though, is in what could be called its charisma, if it could walk into a crowded room, heads would most definitely turn. Its Teflon-coated back and sides are simultaneously rubbery and tough yet soft and almost sensuous, a strangely compelling tactile experience.

Compare Google Nexus One UK prices

Available now on Orange from £15 per month with almost £200 cash back. Or buy it on Orange PAYG and save an extra £10, just use voucher code 10BACK at the checkout.

The Samsung C3510 is an entry level touchscreen phone. It’s similar in looks to the Genio Touch but it has a downgraded specification with a 1.3 megapixel camera and no 3G.

The C3510 comes with a 2.8 screen and Samsung’s Cartoon user interface, which allows users to scroll through the colourful widgets and menus with ease. The large navigation keys beneath the screen make it easy to use and the phone has easy access to Facebook and Twitter.

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Exclusively available from O2 and free on all tariffs, from £15 per month.

The BlackBerry 8520 Curve is a sleek new BlackBerry with a rubberized body.

The 8520 Curve has a full QWERTY keyboard for writing emails, texts and instant messages with ease.

With BlackBerry push email, the 8520 can send and receive emails from a host of different accounts anywhere in the world.

It also features an optical trackball for sensitive and highly accurate navigation, Wi-Fi, a 2 megapixel camera and expandable memory.

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Available now on Orange from £30 per month on a 24m contract, or £40 per month on an 18m contract. Mobile internet can be added for an extra £5 per month.

The Nokia X6 has an impressive 3.2 inch touchscreen that covers almost the entire front of the phone giving it a very innovative and unique design. The phone is pocket and palm friendly measuring 111 x 51 x 13mm and it’s great for watching movies with the 16:9 aspect ratio screen. With 32GB of internal memory there’s plenty of storage too. The X6 runs on Symbian OS v9.4 and has a 434 MHz processor, which is enough to compete with many of other smartphones on the market. The new X Series range from Nokia, will replace the XpressMusic range. As well as launching the X6, Nokia will release the entry-level X3 slider phone iearly in 2010.

The X6’s TFT capacitive touchscreen gives a crisp, bright image and comes with scratch resistant glass. There is a built in accelerometer for automatically switching the screen from portrait to landscape, for widescreen images and videos. For texts and emails the X6 also supports handwriting recognition. The 5 megapixel camera from the Nokia N97 is built-in, it has Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus, LED flash and geo-tagging to take fantastic images of your favourite moments and stamp them with their exact location. The camera also has video recording capabilities and there is the ability to edit images with software provided in the package.

Connectivity-wise, the Nokia X6 has all the usual feature you would expect in a smartphone, 3G, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a microUSB slot to transfer files with or without wires. To ensure you never get lost the X3 has Ovi maps 3.0 satellite navigation software pre-installed. The X6 combines style and technology to bring a fantastic, feature packed flagship phone to the X Series.

Compare all Nokia X6 deals

Originally ground up in the rumour mill and spat out as the Kurara, the first product announcement of 2010 by Sony Ericsson was actually a leak from PR agency Burson-Marsteller. No stranger to crisis management (think Bhopal and Tylenol for starters) B-M attempted to put the struggling genie back in its bottle but – too late! The good people at Sony Ericsson have confirmed the news and we now await the official launch.

So what is the Kurara? Ironically, given the genie poppers’ back catalogue it is a municipality in Uttar Pradesh. But no longer: the new handset has a brand new moniker: the Vivaz, after a collection of vintage 1960s cars from Vauxhall…or maybe not.

From its spec, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is a smartphone to rival anything on the market, most notably with an 8.1 megapixel camera with image stabilisation and face detection and the ability to capture video in 720p HD (ultra-sharp, minimal to zero flicker). It is also said to offer autofocus in its video mode and a dedicated video capture key. The results can be viewed on the 3.2 inch, 640×360 pixel resolution (or WVGA, it’s not yet clear) resistive touchscreen.

At 107×52x12.5mm, the Vivaz is conventionally smartphone sized and nice and well weighted at only 97g (pretty amazing considering the technology within). All the usual smartphone gubbins are included, including HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and A-GPS.

Expected within two to three months, you will be able to sport the Vivaz either in Vivaz Ruby, Moon Silver, Galaxy Blue or - trying a little too hard, perhaps - Cosmic Black.

Sony Ericsson had a hard time financially in 2009, despite the Satio still being arguably the best camera phone in the world. The Vivaz could revive its fortunes and rival the Satio for its camera phone crown.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz deals (coming soon)