15 Hottest smartphones of 2009

15 Hottest smartphones of 2009

Year 2009 saw a flurry of smartphones launched by various vendors to cover their flanks against the onslaught by the iconic iPhone from Apple.

Though the consumer spending took a hit due to slowdown, it didn't deter the cell phone manufacturers from introducing glitzy, feature-rich gizmodos to the ultra-cheap models in the market.

'Touch' magic seemed to be picking a lot of traction. In a haste to cover their flanks, most vendors launched a number of smartphones based on touchscreen this year, some of which had features better than the iPhone.

From Canada's Research in Motion (makers of BlackBerry) to Taiwan's HTC and the market leader Nokia of Finland, all launched a slew of smartphones, some of which had the potential to give tougher competition to Apple iPhone, which saw the launch of its third generation model 3G S this year. The world's largest phone maker Nokia also created buzz with the launch of a touchscreen model in its NSeries range.

Here is a round-up of some of hottest smartphones of year 2009.

Apple iPhone 3G S
Apple iPhone 3G SThis year's hottest smartphone launch came, yet again, from Apple! In June this year, Apple launched iPhone 3G S, the upgraded model that offers faster speed and better features. iPhone 3G S can perform tasks up to 3.6 times faster than the previous second-generation model. Apple claims that it is the 'most powerful iPhone ever made.' The phone now packs an improved 3 megapixel camera along with video capturing, auto-focus mechanism and editing capabilities.

Users can shoot high-quality VGA video in portrait or landscape mode. They can also edit videos and share them. The new version also packs a built-in digital compass that helps users locate their way. Another sorely missed feature 'cut-copy-paste' was introduced in the new version. The new iPhone also has MMS capability and offers multimedia messaging allowing users to send each other photographs from the phone.

iPhone 3G S also packs landscape keyboard. Users can rotate the phone to landscape mode to use a larger keyboard in apps such as Mail, Messages, Notes and Safari.

This model boasts of improved battery life. Apple claims the new model supports up to 12 hours of talk time, 30 hours of audio, 9 hours of Wi-Fi, 10 hours on video playback, and 5 hours of 3G talk time.


Nokia E72
Nokia E72

Handset major Nokia recently launched a new high-end device in the business segment -- E72 -- priced at Rs 22,989.

This new high-end ESeries device from Nokia is considered the successor to one of its most successful Eseries phone-E71.

Though E72 is visually similar to the E71, there have been a lot of changes under the hood. The keypad has been rearranged, the phone also has a new noise cancellation feature which helps to have clear conversations.

E72 boasts of a five megapixel camera and can also record acceptable videos, which can make it a formidable multimedia phone. However, E72 is likely to see some serious competition not only from the market, but from its own predecessors which are now available at lesser price points.

Samsung Omnia II
Samsung Omnia II

After the roaring success of Samsung Omnia, Korean electronics giant launched its second-generation Omnia, i8000 Omnia II, in the country. Full touchscreen Omnia II boasts of a 3.7-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 800x480 and displays 65,000 colours. Measuring 112 x 56.9 x 12.5 mm, the smartphone weighs 125 gram.

It has 8GB of internal memory and can support micro SD cards of upto 32GB. Omnia II features a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and supports video recording with 720x480 resolution at 30fps (frames per second). The phone also has an additional VGA camera on the front for video conferencing. Omnia II also has the geo-tagging feature.

Running on Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 backed by a robust 800MHz processor, Omnia II offers support for 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and A-GPS. Other key features include FM radio with RDS, FM Recording and a 3.5mm jack. The device boasts of 10 hours of talktime and up to 430 hours of stand-by time.

Samsung's second-generation Omnia is priced around Rs 28,990.

Sony Ericsson Satio
Sony Ericsson Satio

One of the biggest launches from Sony Ericsson's stable this year was the 12 megapixel Satio. Measuring 112mm x 55mm x 13.3 mm (LxWxD), the phone weighs 126 gm. It comes with a 3.5 inch, 360 x 640 touchscreen.

Symbian-powered Satio is powered by ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz processor and PowerVR SGX graphics. Other features include USB port, FM Stereo, HTML browser, accelerometer, support for multiple audio and video formats and Java support.

Satio comes with 128MB of onboard memory and supports microSD cards of upto 32GB. It has a 12.1 megapixel camera with Xenon Flash. It also carries Face and Smile Detection technology.

Satio is 3G (HSDPA), GPRS/EDGE; packs Wi-Fi, DLNA, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, USB 2.0; and supports GPS with A-GPS support (for Google Maps). The phone is priced at approximately Rs 35,950 in India.


HTC Touch2
HTC Touch2

After the success of HTC Magic and Hero, HTC launched Touch2 in the Indian market. The phone comes pre-loaded with Windows Mobile 6.5 as its operating system. It features a 3.2 megapixel camera, 528MHz processor, 512MB Rom, 256MB RAM and support for additional memory via the microSD slot.

The 12.9mm thick GSM phone supports Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi, GPRS and Edge. HTC Touch2 even has a built-in GPS antenna. It plays a variety of audio and video formats, which can be viewed on its 2.8-inch LCD screen and heard via the internal speakers or by headphones using the 3.5mm audio jack.

The phone weighs in at 110 gram and is priced at around Rs 24,490.

BlackBerry Storm2
BlackBerry Storm2BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) also unveiled a new version of its touchscreen smartphone BlackBerry Storm2 as the company fights to sustain its supremacy in the smartphone market. The phone, yet to be launched in India, will be the successor to the first BlackBerry touchscreen phone Storm and does away with most of the gaping holes in the earlier version of its first touch screen.

Storm2 features a 3.25-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 360 x 480 pixels. But Storm2, like its predecessor, too doesn’t have a physical keyboard. Instead, it simulates the click of buttons with an electrical pulse when users touch the screen.

The device will come with a 3.2 megapixel camera with 2x digital zoom, image stabilisation, auto focus, flash and video recording as well as 256 MB of Flash memory. It will have a memory of 2GB which can be extended up to 32GB.

The handset has 3G capabilities, GPS, Bluetooth 2.1, and supports most of the new apps released at BlackBerry App World. Storm2 has a 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as a media player for videos, pictures and music. The phone also has Wi-Fi capability like many other BlackBerry devices.

Nokia N97 mini
Nokia N97 mini
After the success of Nokia N97, world's top cellphone maker Nokia launched a smaller version of the device called N97 mini in India. Touted as a smaller mobile computer, the phone boasts of a few changes vis-a-vis its predecessor N97.

N97 mini features a 3.2-inch touchscreen and full Qwerty keyboard built into its 14.2mm thin frame. It measures 113 x 52.5 x 14.2mm. Just like N97, mini too has a tilting touchscreen display and a customisable home screen that can be personalised with widgets.

The device packs 8GB of storage which can be expanded to 24GB with the addition of a 16GB microSD card. The mini runs on Symbian S60 OS just like its predecessor.

N97 mini features a 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and video light. There is a 4x digital zoom. The camera has a Carl Zeiss Tessar lens.

Available in three colours -- Cherry black, Garnet and White -- Nokia N97 mini is priced at Rs 30,939.


Nokia 5530
Nokia 5530

Nokia launched another music phone in India called Nokia 5530 Xpress Music. The touch music phone is the company's second phone in Xpress Music series to be launched in India.

The phone sports a 2.9 inch TFT touchscreen display, with a 360 x 640 pixel resolution. There's also proximity sensor for automatic turn-off, accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate and handwriting rotation. There's also a full-screen Qwerty key board.

Weighing 107 grams, the phone measures 4.09" x 1.92" x 0.51". Nokia 5530 Xpress Music comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus and LED flash. The phone has 4X digital zoom with auto focus.

The Symbian S60 5th edition handset runs on ARM 11 434 MHz processor and has a 128MB RAM memory. Nokia 5530 has a microSD memory card slot with hot swap, up to 16GB (4GB memory card included). The phone's internal memory is 70MB.

Samsung Omnia HD and Pro
Samsung Omnia HD and Pro

Korean giant Samsung refreshed its popular Omnia line-up in the country with the addition of two handsets, Omnia HD and Omnia Pro B7320.

Samsung claims Omnia HD is the world's first full-touch handset with an AMOLED screen size of largest 9.4 cm (3.7-inch). The Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode or AMOLED, touch screen offers sharpness of tone, vivid colours, greater clarity in direct sunlight and consumes less power. The phone has a 16:9 screen with 16M colours.

Unlike the HD's touch screen interface, Omnia PRO has a full Qwerty keypad and boasts of a compact design. Pro has a 2.4-inch TFT LCD display and supports 16M colours.

With 8 megapixel camera, Omnia HD is said to be the first handset featuring 720 pixels high definition (HD) video recording. Pro features a 3 megapixel camera with auto-focus.

Omnia HD comes with an internal memory of 16GB which can be extended to another 32GB, adding up to a total memory capacity of whopping 48GB. Omnia Pro B7320 offers an internal memory of only 70MB, which is expandable up to 16 GB.

At the launch, Omnia HD was priced at Rs 33,990 while Omnia Pro came with a price tag of Rs 16,500.

HTC Magic
HTC Magic

HTC became the first company to bring India's first smartphone that runs on Google's open source Android operating system. HTC Magic, popularly called G2 or the second generation Google phone, as priced around Rs 30,000 approximately.

The phone has a 3.2 inch HVGA touchscreen display with 320 x480 resolution. HTC Magic weighs 116 gms with battery and comes with onscreen keyboard.

The vital statistics of the phone is 11.3 x 5.56 x 1.36 cm. There is a trackball for scrolling screens with Enter button. Other features include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, mini USB and GPS. In addition to accelerometer, HTC G2 has one G Sensor. There is also an MP3 player that supports major audio formats like AAC, AAC+, AMR-NB, MP3, WAV and MIDI.

Magic sports a 3.2 megapixel with Auto Focus. It supports only video formats like MP4 and 3GP which are slightly less when compared to the current standard of Android mobiles.

Samsung Pixon12
Samsung Pixon12Samsung too joined the megapixel war with the launch of a 12-megapixel phone Pixon12 M8910 in the Indian market.

Measuring 108x53x13.8mm, Pixon12 features a 3.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen display. The screen boasts of a contrast ratio of 10,000:1.

The phone packs features like GPS, Bluetooth and an FM radio with RDS. As for memory capacity, Pixon12 comes with 150MB of internal memory and supports up to 16GB of MicroSD cards.

The phone's USP is its 12 megapixel camera which has a Xenon power LED flash and touch autofocus, that lets users decide the focal point with the touch of a finger.

Pixon12 also has a 28mm wide angle lens and a Smart Auto feature. The phone's Smart Auto feature enables camera to automatically change the scene and mode based on background and lighting. Pixon12 records with 720 by 480 resolution at 30 frames per second. Pixon12 was priced around Rs 29,990.

BlackBerry Curve 8520
BlackBerry Curve 8520

RIM refreshed its Curve line-up in India with the launch of BlackBerry Curve 8520. Measuring 109mm in height, 60mm in width and 13.9mm in depth, it weighs 106 gram.

Priced under Rs 15K, the phone replaces the BlackBerry’s traditional trackball navigation and is the first BlackBerry device to sport dedicated music keys.

Sporting a glossy finish, Curve 8520 has a 2.64-inch TFT widescreen with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. The phone has a Qwerty keypad with smaller keys compared to other Curve models. However, they have been slightly raised for easy tapping.

The smartphone has only a 2 megapixel camera with 5X digital zoom. Also, there is no flash or auto focus feature. It offers video recording at a resolution of 320 x 240. Curve 8520 supports most of the video formats including MPEG4, H.263, H.264, and WMV3.

Curve 8520 has a stereo headset, a 2 GB card, USB cable and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Nokia N97
Nokia N97

Pitched as a Personal Computer, Nokia launched N97 in the Indian market. Described as the first real path-breaking smartphone by the company, N97 was priced around Rs 34,000 at the time of launch.

The phone is the first device from the stable of Finnish handset giant to have Ovi Store pre-installed.

The sleek handset pairs a 3.5 inch touchscreen with a Qwerty keyboard. The slide-out Qwerty keyboard is a full 3-row. The smartphone transforms from a touch slate to a landscape Qwerty device. There's a tilting touchscreen display and a customisable home screen that can be personalised with widgets.

N97 offers a powerful 32GB memory with microSD for adding 16GB more (making it a staggering 48GB), 5 megapixel camera (with Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash), support for Nokia's N-Gage gaming system and handwriting recognition.

Other features include a 3.5mm headset jack, microUSB port used for syncing and charging and 1500 mAh battery. The smartphone runs on S60, the latest version of Nokia’s Symbian operating system.

The phone has 3G wireless network connectivity, a built-in compass and GPS. There are comprehensive connectivity options: WiFi, tri-band HSDPA, Bluetooth and USB.


Sony Ericsson W705
Sony Ericsson W705


Sony Ericsson added another Walkman series phone in India with the launch of W705.

This phone has a 2.4-inch, 320 x 240 TFT display, 3.2 megapixel camera, 120MB of onboard storage with memory stick micro support and 4GB storage capacity. The phone supports Walkman version 3.0 which has a SensMe and Shake Control.

It packs standard Walkman applications like TrackID, MusicDj, VideoDj, PhotoDj and Location services.

The phone offers support for Wi-Fi and is 3G-enabled. It bundles optimised music features and enhanced wireless connectivity.

The phone comes preloaded with games like Guitar Hero Tour, NitroStreet, Bowling, Bubble Town and Sudoku. For fitness freaks, the phone has a WalkMate application.

W705 also supports TrackID music recognition service and PlayNow arena online mobile content store. It also has an in-built accelerometer supported by the Mobile Sensor API (JSR 256) for applications and games. Priced around Rs 17,786, the phone comes in two colour options -- Silver and Red.

Asus P565
Asus P565Asus pepped up its corporate offering with the launch of P565 in India.

The black candybar boasts of features such as an 800MHz processor and a 2.8-inch, 65K-colour touchscreen that can be operated through ASUS’ ‘Glide’ touch-responsive interface.

Weighing in at 120 gm (with battery), the P565 comes pre-loaded with SatGuide maps for over 200 cities and 1.5 million destinations in the country.

It has 3 megapixel camera for photos, and a secondary camera for video telephony. Operating on a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS platform, this business PDA phone comes with 256MB memory, 128MB DDR SDRAM, and a MicroSD card slot for further expansion.

The phone was priced at Rs 35,000 at launch and has since become much cheaper.
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