The mobile war continues. New mobile phone models introduced last week by three leading players HTC, Sony Ericsson and Samart I-Mobile offer many features that consumers should find enticing such as rich multimedia applications, a touch-sensitive screen, automatic TV tuner, Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system, motion-sensor games, full Qwerty keys and integrated GPS. Chandra Devi writes.

The Touch 3G enables the user to zoom and pan Web sites with a single hand.

The 625 comes bundled with a 3.2-megapixel camera.

The Xperia X1 features customisable panels and DVD playback capabilities.

Just Touch

Like most touch-screen phones, HTC’s Touch series does away with conventional keypads and allows users to access menus with on-screen buttons.

The Touch 3G and Touch HD rely on the company’s TouchFlo 3D technology, a touch-responsive user interface which offers intuitive access to everything onboard the phones. Besides touch control, there are four-way control and Enter buttons.

The small and lightweight Touch 3G is packed with Internet capabilities. To enhance the browsing experience, the phone runs on high-speed 3G networks with download speeds of up to 18 times faster than standard 3G. The phone is designed to enable users to zoom and pan Web sites with one hand. Powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, it brings improved mobile Internet browsing, mobile instant messaging and easier access to e-mail and documents.

A 2.8-inch thin-film transistor (TFT) LCD provides a clear view and high resolution.

For connectivity, the Touch 3G supports Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi and mini-USB 2.0. The phone also comes with an integrated GPS which can be used with third-party map software and a 3.2-megapixel camera.

The Touch 3G will be available by end of this month at RM1,999. The standard package will include a one-gigabyte (GB) Micro Secure Digital card.

Feature-wise, there are not many differences between the Touch 3G and Touch HD apart from screen size and camera resolution. The Touch HD has a 3.8-inch wide video graphics array screen, which offers a better Internet browsing and movie viewing experience. It also comes with a five-megapixel camera. The Touch HD will be available early next month. At RM3,399, it comes packaged with an 8GB microSD card.

TV on the go

If you are looking for affordable phones, check out Samart I-Mobile’s range.

The Thai mobile phone company has caught consumers’ attention not only in its homeland, but also in Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Laos, Cambodia, Bangladesh and even Malaysia with a slew of premium products at reasonable rates.

Its latest offerings are four entertainment-powered multimedia phones: the 522, 625, TV 523 and TV 626.

The four phones feature innovations such as auto TV tuner, dual SIM, Casio Hitachi optics, Yamaha audio amplifier and a talking dictionary. All models are available in the market. Some of these phones have a private menu option, which allows the user to “hide” some contacts’ call and message details.

Most interesting among the four models is the TV 626, which features Samart I-Mobile’s auto TV tuner technology. The phone is able to pick up TV transmissions through an antenna, allowing the user to watch TV programmes over the 2.4-inch screen wherever he may be. Also interesting is the motion-sensor technology for playing the bundled motion-sensor games and accessing the phone menu. At RM699, the TV 626 comes equipped with a three-megapixel camera.

Next, the TV 523 is a basic TV phone. At RM499, it has most of the features found on the TV 626 except that it has a video graphics array (VGA) camera.

For best camera performance, you can consider the 625, which carries a 3.2-megapixel camera with Casio Hitachi optics, LED flash and auto-focus function. At RM599, this camera phone has built-in memory space of 90 megabytes (MB) and an expandable memory slot up to four gigabytes. Dual SIM phones are not new innovations, but to get one at RM488 is rather new. That’s the price for the 522, which has a dual SIM and built-in memory space of 120MB with a Micro Secure Digital card slot. Other features include a VGA camera and TV-out jack.

Slide and customise

Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1 smartphone has an arc-slider design. It is the company’s first phone to feature the Windows Mobile operating system. The model has a three-inch touch-screen, Qwerty slide keypad and a four-way key for fast access to information and applications. With high-speed downlink packet access support, it brings fast audio and video streaming, Web surfing, multimedia messaging and e-mail.

Apart from the arc-slider design, the Xperia X1 features customisable panels and DVD playback capabilities.

The feature-rich model also allows the user to customise its “desktop” with various panels. It has room for nine panels, which the user can access with just a touch. And if you don’t like these panels, you can download others from Sony Ericsson’s Fun and Downloads.

For connectivity, the smartphone supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and universal serial bus. It also has GPS, Google Maps and Microsoft Office Mobile. The Xperia X1 will be available by end of the month. It is expected to retail at over RM3,000.