Omio Round Up: The Best Touch Screen Phones!
With the industry moving from megapixels to tactile touch screens as the mobile phone ‘must-have’, we’ve decided to compile a list of the five best handsets for getting into the world of button free telephony.
This list covers everything from entry level to the slickest finger-swiping phones, with something there for everyone to step their mobile game up to the next level!
LG Arena KM900
The LG Arena KM900 manages to use the combination of good looks and a great user interface to make for a great first touch screen handset. Much has been made of the new interface that LG has dubbed ‘S-Class,’ and definitely brings a very novel way to navigate the handset.
A 3-dimensional cube revolves to provide access to four different screens – contacts, widgets, shortcuts and a customizable home page. A single swipe takes users from one ‘side’ to the next, giving a quick and visually arresting way to manoeuvre around the device.
Whilst gimmicky at first, the interface soon proves indispensable but LG does also caters for newcomers by offering a simpler menu for those put off by the futuristic styling of S-Class.
Specifications are strong throughout, a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with digital zoom, GPS and 8GB of internal memory rounding out a feature set driven by the 3” TFT touchscreen.
View pay monthly and prepay LG Arena deals on Omio.
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Samsung Tocco Lite
The Samsung Tocco Lite continues the immensely successful Tocco range with a cheap and cheerful handset that brings touch screen joy, without the price tag.
The Tocco Lite might ‘only’ be a 2G handset, but don’t let that put you off.
The 3” display offers the same TouchWiz user interface spotted on higher end devices, and with a thin frame as well as a 3.15 megapixel camera with face and smile detection, the Tocco Lite punches above its weight in terms of both looks and specs.
The Tocco Lite has everything that you need from a next generation mobile including music and movie playback for most formats, a document viewer, stereo FM radio and downloadable games.
Cute touches like the gesture lock which allows you to open applications while unlocking your device just by drawing a letter on the screen and handy widgets more than make up for concessions like the lack of 3G connectivity on the Samsung Tocco Lite, an impressive phone at a cheap price.
View pay monthly and prepay Samsung Tocco Lite S5230 deals on Omio.
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HTC Touch Diamond 2
Those looking for a more refined touch experience need look no further than the HTC Touch Diamond 2, an evolution in Windows Mobile-powered devices.
The iconic design of the original HTC Touch Diamond has been tempered slightly, resulting in a phone that is familiar and compact to hold, yet improves in many areas. The 3.2” VGA display is significantly larger, and combined with a touch sensitive zoom bar below the screen, the Diamond 2 makes web browsing a joy.
The zoom bar can also be used to navigate web pages, texts and photos, whilst the TouchFLO 3D interface makes navigating the handset simple yet effective. TouchFLO attempts to make the Windows mobile experience far more enjoyable, and the graphical flourishes as well as menu shortcuts make the Touch Diamond 2 easier to use than most devices lumbered with the ‘smartphone’ name.
A pricier and more technical handset than some in this list, the Touch Diamond 2 is a fully fledged multimedia device with 3G connectivity, built-in GPS and a 5 megapixel camera beefing up a rich feature set.
With the ability to upgrade to the new version of Windows Mobile when it comes out, the Touch Diamond 2 is a great bit of mobile kit that will remain future-proof for a long time to come.
View pay monthly and SIM-free HTC Touch Diamond 2 deals on Omio.
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Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is the epitome of cool by committee. With a plectrum for a stylus, endorsement from today’s fashionable young things and an eagerly awaited touch design, the 5800 was bound to be a hit.
A music phone at heart, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic ticks all the specs boxes with 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi support, a 3.2 megapixel camera and a hefty 3.2” high resolution touch display. Your music selection is handled by an 8GB memory card (included in the package), and a 3.5mm audio jack means that your favourite headphones can be plugged in with little trouble.
Despite the novel form factor and touch input, it is business as usual for anyone familiar with a Nokia device, the icons and menus will be entirely familiar for those used to any phone from the Finnish manufacturer in the last five years. Which is everyone.
Despite this, the funky combination of old and new has made the Nokia 5800 hugely popular as a first mobile phone without (as many) buttons.
View pay monthly, pre-pay and SIM-free Nokia 5800 XpressMusic deals on Omio.
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Apple iPhone 3GS
No touch screen mobile phone comparison would be complete without this game changing behemoth!
Getting the design so right first time has given Apple the ability to reiterate rather than revolutionize, and the iPhone 3GS is the second update to the groundbreaking formula.
Expanding on the iconic device with a 3 megapixel camera, video recording, voice controls and up to 32GB of storage, the Apple iPhone 3GS is able to do it all, faster.
The ‘S’ on this new model’s chest stands for ‘speed,’ and in terms of loading applications, web pages and general handset use, the iPhone 3GS trounces its forebears.
Little else has been changed, but the addition of an internal compass has enabled the device to provide full turn-by-turn GPS (with the help of a forthcoming application).
All this is moot – as iPhone owners know – the hook is the brilliant interface. The 3.5” touch screen, the multi-touch input methods, the ambient light sensor and menus created with touch in mind have all been around since the first iteration and are still the reason that people have flocked to the device in droves.
Ahead of the curve in so many ways (yet glaringly behind in others), the iPhone approaches mobiles from such a different perspective, and is largely why it is such a revelation to use. The browsing on Safari may lack Flash (for now), but is arguably the smoothest, fastest and most enjoyable web experience on a phone, bar none.
Use an iPhone and your current mobile - touch screen or otherwise – will feel archaic in comparison. The only thing that will stop you tearing into your local O2 store and snapping one up will be the exorbitant price.
It is indeed one of the best phones around, if you can justify the price…
View Apple iPhone 3GS deals on Omio.
Tags: apple iphone 3gs, arena, htc touch diamond 2, LG, LG arena, Nokia 5800, samsung, samsung tocco lite, tocco lite, xpressmusic