TechRadar reveals the 10 best mobile phones available in the world today. This article is updated regularly.
Whichever way you look at it, the biggest technology story of the '00s was the rise to power of the mobile phone.
The mighty HDTV may have something to say about that, but the stats don't lie - nothing attracts google searches or inspires tweets on twitter like a new Apple iPhone or the latest HTC Android handset.
The future
And while the last decade started with the Nokia 3210 and its monophonic ringtone-composing stablemates, the '10s have already begun with news of the much-fabled Google phone – the Nexus One – as well as the promise of a new iPhone and a raft of Android-powered handsets and 3G netbooks.
The phone industry is now so humungous it's worth over $24bn in India alone. Some stats suggest that the global mobile industry will be worth $200bn by 2012 – that's $33 for every human being on the planet.
And what's driving this recession-beating performance? It's the technology, stupid!
So here we have our continually updated list of the 10 best mobile phones of the current crop, in reverse order, ending with what we consider to be the best mobile phone on the planet...
10. Nokia 5530 XpressMusic
While the Nokia N97 and 5800 XpressMusic phones are clambering over each other to gain attention at the more expensive range of the market, the 5530 offers something refreshingly different.It offers a 2.9-inch touchscreen with a music-orientated interface and all for just £130. Probably the best budget touchscreen phone available today.
9. Motorola Milestone
Once a giant in the world of mobile phones, Motorola went quiet for quite a while. It made almost 10,000 people redundant in 2008 and the end looked in sight.However, the end has not arrived, and Moto came back with a vengeance in 2009, firstly with the much-mooted Motorola DEXT phone and now with the Motorola Milestone (Droid).
We've got no qualms stating that this is our third favourite Android phone behind the HTC Hero and the Google Nexus One.
The slick interface, the QWERTY keyboard, the premium build quality - all these things go into making the Milestone a decent phone.But it lets itself down at times by lacking any real differentiating features (apart from the cool phone portal) and that lip - well, the less said about it the better now.
8. LG BL40 Chocolate
Probably the most striking of all the phones on display here, the latest LG Chocolate is the world's first full-widescreen 21:9 phone.The chassis is a combination of metal and glass, with vibrant red plastic at either end, with the top housing the 3.5mm headphone port and the power/lock key.
It's designed from the ground up to be a media phone, and indeed, watching movies is a pleasure, as is navigating large music collections.
7. Google Nexus One
You'd have to have been hiding under a rock for the past month or two to not notice Google is making its own phone and it's finally here: the Nexus One.Manufactured by HTC but sold by Google, the phone has had early adopters and the casual user alike interested in what it will be like, so read on to find out how the UK version fared in our hands.
A lot has been made of the screen, and it's probably a bit overhyped. Yes, at 3.7-inches it's a little large, but it's not the biggest: both the Toshiba TG01 and the HTC HD2 beat it comfortably.
We'll reserve judgement until our full and in-depth review, but we're quietly confident that when people ask 'which phone shall I get?' we'll be pointing a few in the direction of the Nexus One.
6. Palm Pre
The Palm Pre was probably the most hyped phone of 2009. Hailed as the saviour of Palm, it initially promised to at least threaten the iPhone at the top of the touchscreen pile.One thing's for sure, it's more suited for business users because of its slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
In fact, if you peek under the hood, you'll find a quick Texas Instruments OMAP 3430 processor, 8GB of internal memory, 802.11g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth with A2DP stereo.
This is a capable mobile computer that supports multi-tasking, contact sync across multiple web services, and push email that could lead to swift adoption at companies both large and small, filling the void left by the popular Palm Treo from years ago.
In truth though, it's no iPhone-beater. But that's not in any way a criticism, more of a back-handed compliment to Apple in fact, because the Pre is still a seriously nice piece of kit.
5. Nokia N900
Not necessarily something we agree with, but Nokia is adamant this isn't a phone. Instead, it's saying that it's a small computer/slimmed-down netbook (depending on who you talk to) thanks to the new Maemo 5 operating system (OS), which is based on Linux.Essentially, it's a unit with a 3G chip in it for voice and data with a similar form factor to a phone, so it's really just semantics what you want to call it.
As mentioned above, the N900 comes with the brand new new Maemo 5 operating system which is designed to offer powerful new options that we haven't seen on Symbian-powered devices before.
While Maemo has been seen on previous internet tablets from Nokia, this release is important as it makes the OS more finger friendly than ever before. It also allows a high level of customisation, a wider web browser and more location based services too.
4. HTC HD2
The HTC HD2's enormous 4.3-inch touchscreen is hugely impressive. And the HD2 is the first Windows Phone to come packing the HTC Sense overlay interface, as well as a capacitive multi-touch screen.It smashes past the iPhone in terms of raw processing speed and the ability to handle Flash video.
And it dwarfs the Hero with a more responsive screen and its Wi-Fi routing ability too, and is far better than anything Samsung, LG or Nokia have come up with so far.
3. BlackBerry Bold 9700
Featuring an improved processor and latest UI, the Bold 9700 certainly has the specs but can it stop the iPhone and Android onslaught?It's a little bit squished in comparison to the older device, but we don't think that's too much of an issue given the well designed chassis.
The sheer speed of the Bold 2 9700 is to be commended, as it's clearly a big effort from RIM to get that up to speed, and although App World isn't working for us yet thanks (probably) to the T-Mobile, we're sure once that's up and running the Bold 2 9700 will be a very compelling business phone indeed.
Like the HD2, whether it's something the consumer will want/need, we don't know – it depends on the importance of easy to sync web mail we guess, as well as a stylish device to boot.
2. Apple iPhone 3GS
What? What's this? The Apple iPhone in at number 2? That's right, folks – the iPhone has been beaten into second place.There's no denying the quality of the iPhone, and really it could just as easily have come out on top. Still though, we'll get to that on the next page.
The iPhone 3GS is a stunning handset. It's faster than the iPhone 3G and also has a better camera, so if you're thinking of getting an iPhone for the first time, we reckon opting for the 3GS is a no-brainer, even if the 3G is slightly cheaper.
1. HTC Hero
There's a reason why the HTC Hero has received so much praise this year – it's brilliant. End-of-year award ceremonies aplenty are naming the Hero as best gadget, best mobile phone and so on, and rightly so.It's the most complete Android handset to date, and as such it's the only phone out there that can really claim to compete with the iPhone.
In truth, it's probably not better than the iPhone. But it's certainly no worse either, so we thought it only fair to give it the top spot – not least because of the huge potential that Android is bringing to the table.
The iPhone is no longer the out-and-out best touchscreen consumer phone on the market, and for that we can be grateful because competition brings with it innovation, which for us can only be a good thing.
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