RINGING IN THE NEW YEAR

If you have been planning to buy phones, computers or other electronic gadgets, it might be worth waiting till 2008. In the first of the three-part series, we bring you the best pick among cell phones

While it’s not easy to put a finger on the exact date that iPhone and Google’s much touted g-phone will storm into India, the following three phones are sure to put in an appearance in the new year. Here are some options that will make you sit up—and are worth the wait till next year.

Nokia E51
While Nokia E50 was a great phone for professionals on the move, it had its share of problems. With E51, Nokia has overcome these and should be available across the stores in a month. A slim candy bar business phone the 100 gm phone is available in three colour combinations—black, silver and copper. It’s a Quad band phone, so you can use it worldwide, and though designed for business applications, it can be used by everyone. It also comes with Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth and an Infrared port to connect to other devices. The 2.5-mm earphone jack is now called the Nokia A/V connector and also features a mini-USB 2.0 connect. Unlike other phones which need a GPRS connection for the VoIP application, the E51 can use either GPRS or wireless connection, making for higher speeds and lesser cost. Through its text-to-speech feature, you can hear the SMSes and callers’ names. The display is now a cool 2-inch LCD with 16 million colours and features a 2-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom. It also has e-mail support (Pop3/IMAP4/SMTP) and built-in attachment viewers.

Motorola’s Razr2 Luxury Edition
The Razr story might be in for a repeat with the Razr2 Luxury edition. With lavish 18k gold-plated accents and a snake-skin feel, the phone has a great visual appeal. The only phone that comes close in terms of looks is the Rs 3 lakh plus Vertu. Sadly, Motorola has still not learnt that it needs to provide a memory card slot—so it limits you to about 512 MB on board memory. The camera now has an 8x digital zoom, but is still a 2-megapixel one. At 117 gm, no Wi-Fi, four hours of talk time and a Quad-band operation handset, it may not be the best pick, but if you are into bling or a P3P, make sure you are not seen without it.

Samsung SGH800
These Korean phones may not be feature-rich, but have the most stable operating system and last long. The 2007 Metal series is now being extended with a lot more plastic, but a model worth the wait is the SGH 800. Featuring a plasticy front, a steel-finished back and a 5-megapixel camera with a Xenon flash and 3x optical zoom, the phone is designed like a camera with a slide-up front, large buttons and a 2.4-inch screen. It has a measly talk time of 3.5 hours, but the Quad band 160 MB built-in expandable memory, support for Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Acrobt PDF files, and 3.5 G capacity, it’s a great buy. The plastic front and the missing Wi-Fi are not appealing, but if you are looking for a powerful camera in a good phone, this is your option.

Sony Ericsson W380i
So what’s new about this Walkman phone, other than its purple colour, a lot of holes on the cover (mesh design), camera, and buttons etched into the front panel? There’s the keylock switch on the outside which prevents the battery from draining if you press the play button by mistake. The clamshell is also a great looker with its OLED display. Another attractive feature is the gesture control, which lets you move your hand over the phone to mute an incoming call or put the alarm clock on snooze—you can control the phone without touching it. So if you are not too big on camera (1.3 megapixel) but love music, this one is for you.