Nine iPhone Killers

There can be no doubt that iPhone is excellent. A large number of Apple fans queued for scare buying since it was launched. But its faults - video recording, unchangeable battery, MMS, only synchronization with iTunes, make some users disappointed. Almost all mobile phones are imitating iPhone's big touch screen, florid users interface, and gravity sensor. Some copyists make a perfect reproduction in appearance but with an odd interface. Anyway there are some brilliant copyists. In some aspects they have great advantage. We call these phones "iPhone killers". We find that these "killers" have much in common - they all have 2.8" touch screen and equalizer. And their cameras are better than iPhone's 2MP, most of them supporting auto focus. Does iPhone still have predominance? Let's see with this evaluation of 9 iPhone killers.

We make the basic standards in this contest:

1. No smaller than 2.8" touch screen

2. Built-in gravity accelerator

3. No lower than 3MP camera

According to this standard we get 9 handsets which are very familiar to us. They are HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch HD, LG KP500, LG LC910, Samsung i908, Samsung M8800c, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic - Nokia's first touch screen phone, T-Mobile G1, and Blackberry 9500 Storm - Blackberry's first touch screen phone. All of them stand for the most sophisticated and newest technology.

Rules:

With regard to iPhone's biggest feature - user interface and web browser, we had some rule adjustment. Practical functions such as user experience and video play are paid more attention to while hardware such as camera and CPU are less valued. Appearance, battery life, and price are kept as usual.

1. Appearance (10')

2. User interface (20')

3. Display (10')

4. User experience (10')

5. Video play (10')

6. Web browser (10')

7. Add-ons (10')

8. Battery life (10')

9. Price (10')

Awards:

The best "iPhone killer" phone 2008

The most popular "iPhone killer" phone 2008

The most cost-effective "iPhone killer" phone 2008

Appearance (10')

All these mobile phones are their brands' flagship. Five editors marked them and then arrived at the average mark. The result shows that HTC Touch Diamond is the most beautiful device. HTC Touch HD and Samsung i908 take the second and the third placerespectively.

The diamond cuts on the back give the phone a name "Diamond" which tells us HTC Touch Diamond's appearance is far from being ordinary. It looks slim and delicate. If you have some knowledge about Windows mobile operating system which is adopted in this phone, you will understand how difficult it is to make it as thin as 11.35mm and its weight as light as 110g.

A 3.2MP, auto focus camera is placed on a silver triangle among diamond cuts on the back, which is exquisite. There is not too much decoration on flanks and interfaces for the sake of its compact style.

Interface (20')

Besides the Apple logo on the back, the gorgeous, strong, and easy to use interface is iPhone's another selling point. That's why we award 20' on this section, including comfort when touching, equalizer's scope, if supporting rolling menu or not, the fluency of rolling menu, and reflection speed. 5' are awarded in each section.

In the section of "comfort when touching" Blackberry 9500 gets full mark because of its "SurePress". HTC Touch HD gets 4' for its 3.8" touch screen. 4 Korean mobile phones with vibration feedback, LG and Samsung, get 3'. T-Mobile G1 ranks on the last place for its mechanical and blunt touching feeling.

We tested equalizer's scope as well as its speed and fluency in the section of "equalizer's scope". Blackberry 9500's main menu supports auto turning and it's very swift and free-flowing, thus it ranks the first again. On the contrary, T-Mobile G1's equalizer is not available in all its interfaces. Which goes to the bottom again.

"Rolling menu" refers to switching interface by finger rolling. HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch HD, Blackberry 9500 and T-Mobile G1 are tied for first place in this section. Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Samsung i908 are tied for last place, only supporting a scroll bar.

The reflection speed is attached with the most importance by users. T-Mobile G1, which was listed on the bottom in last sections, ranks first with 4 mark in this section. Nokia 5800, which adopted S60 5TH Edition, gets 2.5', ranking on the last place. The final result shows that Blackberry 9500 is the champion, HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch HD equal second.

Display (10')

Needless to say, display means a lot to "big touching screen" phones. This section is divided into 3 parts - size, resolution and subjective evaluation. In this section HTC Touch Diamond gets only 4' for its 2.8" VGA screen.

Two 1920x1200 pixels pictures were applied to test saturation and contrast of these phones' display. They are classified into 3 levels. Blackberry 9500 is the first level, LG KC910, T-Mobile G1, LG KP500 and Samsung M8800 the second, Nokia 5800, HTC Touch HD, Samsung i908 and HTC Touch Diamond the third.

Users experience (20')

More than 20 users were invited to experience the 9 handsets. After 2 hours we received 17 questionnaires about easy use and reflection speed. T-Mobile G1, HTC Touch HD and Blackberry 9500 are ranked the first three.

Vedio play (10')

iPhone only supports M4V, MP4, MOV. Let's see these "iPhone killers". We play 13 video formats, including avi, mp4, rmvb, wmv, etc, in these sets. If the phone can play one, it gets 1'. We mainly test the built-in video player, but phones with open operating system will earn more marks.

Because CorePlayer can be installed in HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch HD and Samsung i908, they are all added 2'. Though G1 doesn't have a video player it can play 480x352 pixels, H.264, H.263 format video providing Video Player is installed in Market. We gave it 2'.

Web browser (10')

iPhone's Safari is considered to be the best web browser. Youtube video player counts more and more. Browser and Youtube are the two items we test in this section.

Add-ons (10')

In this contest the hardware equipment is not valued. However, data link and some hardware equipment still need our attention. In terms of data link we compare their data interface, flash memory, expansion slot, earphone slot, GPS, camera and speaker. HTC Touch HD gets the highest mark - 7'.

Standby (10')

It seems that these iPhone killers' batteries are not better than iPhone's. Fortunately their battery can be changed. We tested their theoretical battery life which is awarded 4' and practical performance which is awarded 6'. Nokia 5800 XpressMusic proves to be the best one.

Total score:

When counting the total score by Excel, we found the champion is HTC Touch HD one more time! It was "the best hardware-equipped phone" in the test "17 windows mobile smart phones contest" we made last December. In this contest, it is "the best iPhone killer phone 2008".

Windows mobile smart phone HTC Touch HD was released at the end of 2008. The most specific feature is its super-high resolution and 3.8" screen.

Developing direction:

A. Special User Interface

iPhone's UI is simple and delicate, and "iPhone killers" have their own special UIs and operating ways. Simple, convenient, brilliant user interfaces are always smart phones' selling point.

B. iPhone's App Store is thought to be the most mature commercial software platform. Android Market develops very fast. However, Windows Mobile, Symbian S60 and Blackberry haven't built their software shop online so far. Symbian's signature is a bother. There is no doubt that in the future easy software downloading and online shop are the trend.

C. As 3G becomes more and more popular, mobile phones will be the commonest device for WWW, RSS, Twitter, online video, blog, even online games. Phone-end internet application will be iPhone killers' developing direction. Google Android OS is open to internet all round. Like iPhone, it is a typical phone in the hand internet era.

In fact these phones are not as convenient and simple as iPhone though we name them "iPhone killers". iPhone still has dominance. "Simple is beauty." is Apple's maxim. Do these killers have their own maxim?

We wish these phones could do more than imitating; we hope to see more and more creation and evolution in future phones; we hope to see and use phones much more interesting than iPhone. That's the ultimate goal of this contest!

Jerry Smith, the editor of http://www.mobilephoneonly.co.uk. An expert on mobile phone and an observer of UK telecommunication market. He writes reviews on latest mobile phones, and also suggests promotional deals and special offers from mobile phone retailers in UK.