Of course everyone knows about the Iphone and you either want one or have one, but did you know about what is already being used in Asia and what we can expect for 2010?  There are some contenders with smaller marketing budgets that might just make you go behind the back of your trusty Mac.

Written on the Android (Cupcake) platform, this is a nice introductory phone into touch screens for the semi-business professional.  If you’re just getting your feet wet with smartphones, this is a great choice.  Available for Verizon and up to date with popular social networking programs, you won’t need to download as many apps as its competitors to get great performance right out of the box.

Though, we’d prefer a larger processor and disk space to help this phone step out of the smartphone category and into the emerging mini-laptops that cell phones will be in the future. 

Operating System Google Android (Cupcake)
Processor Qualcomm® MSM7600™, 528MHz
Internal Memory 512MB ROM / 288MB RAM
Display 3.2-inch 320 x 480
Weight 4.23 ounces
Battery 1300 mAh Li-on
Talk time: 214 min
Standby: 373 hrs
Built-in Camera 5.0 MP w/ Auto Focus Audio/Video
 MIDI, M4A, QCP, AMR, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WAV, WMA, MP3, EVRC-B
MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV
I/O Interface Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for stereo wireless headsets, WiFi®: IEEE 802.11b/g
Expansion microSD™ memory card slot

HTC has other great phones out like HTC Hero for Sprint and the upcoming HTC HD2 available the first quarter 2010 where sales in other country have already skyrocketed to the 1 million mark.

Who doesn’t know the iPhone?  The 3GS is different in that it adds a few software tweaks that should’ve been included in the original iPhone such as PC tethering, voice control, Cut & Paste, and video recording.  Oh, and PC Tethering isn’t available in the US unless you decide to hack your device.  Engadget gives a pretty good comparison vs the regular iPhone that you might want to check out.

After playing around with the new 3Gs, I decided I just couldn’t handle all the proprietary features.  My idea is that when you buy a phone, you should own it.  Apple disagrees and merely leases their product to you and wants it back if you leave AT&T.  This is apparent with all the warning I got on Itunes when syncing various programs.  Frustrated, I hacked the phone to allow me to use what I rightfully paid for. 

Despite all the proprietary BS you have to deal with, two things set this phone apart from all the competition.  The incredible touchscreen has yet to be rivaled and the ever-growing application database.  If you get one, you should also check out the Appulo.us Database & Cydia for 3rd party programs.

Really designed for music lovers, this is a handy phone that has a few features others are missing.  The 32 gigabyte storage is native to the X6 and it also boasts an fm radio on board.  Nokia has their own flavor of iTunes with plenty of free music.  No, I mean PLENTY.  Your contract includes access to their online store where literally all of your music you download is yours to keep for free. 

The other amazing feature isn’t for the phone, but for the company.  Nokia has an Open Source Community  where they are really pushing forward for community based apps.  This is revolutionary.  I know, Apple has an app workshop & extensive database, but it’s hardly open source.  Nokia is stepping out of the mobile boundaries by giving their Symbian OS programming to the community for a full open source program where the sky is the limit.  This will be the biggest hit of this phone not to mention the incredible touch screen, free audio subscription, vivid display and already setup to work with popular social networks. 

The only catch?  Not yet available in the US.  Notice our links take you to the Asia site.  The US is about two years behind most other country and the iPhone is the only contender in other countries.  We are reviewing this phone becuase it’s speculated to be out in the US later in 2010 and will be a good phone for those music buffs who are thinking about upgrading their iPod to an iPhone, but want options.

As a leader in cell phones boasting over 50 million full touchscreen sales to date, Samsung has obviously been doing something right recently.  Their Omnia series has been a big hit and is one of my favorites.  The latest Omnia i8910 HD is ground breaking on many levels.  It is the first mobile to offer HD Video Recording.  Sure, it’s a smartphone, but the technology Samsung has captured is absolutely amazing.  This is what the future of cell phones should and will be.  In addition to having the best video recorder, the Omnia HD also boasts the best camera to date with 8.0 Megapixels that actually takes great pictures.

Samsung went further to include great video integration to playback movies on the 3.7″ screen.  You’ll even find Divx & Xvid codecs preinstalled, which is a treat.  It has an interesting twist with home screen navigation that has a seethrough panel on the left that you can drag and drop programs out onto your desktop easily.  I believe it needs some fine-tuning, but is a nice feature once the bugs are worked out.

Speaking of bugs, this is where all touchscreens still fall short of the iPhone and really what has made the iPhone so successful.  The Omnia’s touchscreen itself isn’t as responsive as we’d like and the interface seems to still be in beta stages.  We’re excited as this phone has raised the bar with 16 Gigabytes flash memory plus a microSD slot to hold up to 16 Gigabytes extra, an incredible camera and HD quality video that can rival standard minicams and blows away all other phones, and incredible HD playback of movies all on a phone! 

If Samsung add a better touchscreen and more friendly user interface it will be the phone of 2010.  Though, if Apple releases a new iPhone with HD playback, removable storage, and a video camera of this quality then I’d rather go in that direction. 

Conclusion

The next generartion of cell phones should see 32 gigs of storage space as a minimum, HD quality playback and recording of videos, an 8.0 MP camera that will make you want to leave your other camera at home, an extremely responsive touchscreen with the pinch feature from iPhone, a music database that you can subscribe to with your contract, an fm tuner, GPS integration as a basic feature, and lastly an open-source application database that is community driven and open source.

For now, you have to pick what is important to you? Business functionality? Visuals & an easy to use interface? Great music and open source database? Or HD Recording & Playback with a nice camera?