TOUCHSCREENS within touch

The touchscreen has become affordable

The touchscreen has become affordable
Ever since Apple surprised the world with the iPhoneletting you pinch its screen and flip your way through the menueveryone has been aspiring to own a screen they could touch. While steep prices kept many away,2009 has seen some of these phones become really affordable.
But with so many touchscreen phones flooding the market,how do you pick the right one? One of the main things to watch out for when buying a touchscreen phone is how responsive the phone is to your gentle prodding. If the phone doesnt respond as you would like it to,move on. The interface is also very important. Some feature onscreen icons that are tiny for most fingers and have to be approached with a stylus. On the other hand,a large screen is prone to fingerprint marks and cracks,making screen protection a necessity. Large screens also drain out the battery. Though you can save a bit of power by reducing the screens brightness,it is better to opt for a phone with good power management.

LG KP500 Cookie
Priced at Rs 9,499,the Cookie offers decent multimedia features on its dominating 3-inch display. Weighing 88 grams,the phone has a solid feel to it and fits perfectly into the pocket. Unlike the Viewty,the touchscreen is pretty responsive,though its 240×400 pixel display is nothing to write home about. It comes with a 3 megapixel camera,but without auto-focus or flash. The video-recording is also not that great,and the web browser is a major drawback,but the Cookie gives the rest of the pack a run for its money as far as battery life goes. This phone is ideal for those who are dying to buy a touchscreen phone,but cant spend a fortune on it.

Samsung Star
This phone is truly the Star of this segment,thanks to its Rs 8,500 price tag and user-friendly TouchWIZ UI interface. It is pretty similar to the Cookie in size and weight but certainly looks more shiny and polished. With a 3-inch wide display and 240×400 pixel resolution,working on the Star is fun. There are three separate homescreens to stack up your widgets onthe phone comes preloaded with Facebook,MySpace,YouTube,Flickr and Picasa widgets. It is also equipped with the Samsung Mobile Browser,a Webkit-based application that supports both Java and Flash.

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Samsung Star 3G
Despite being a 3G-enabled device,the Samsung Star 3G has an unreasonably low resolution and small screen. But the touch input is simple and it even has a standard keypad. The phone is slim with a thickness of 13mm thick and weighs just over 90g. It has a 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash and speakers at the bottom. Price Rs 11,500.

Nokia 5230
Though its 5800 Xpress Music failed to emerge as the iPhone killer,Nokia hopes to capture the touchscreen market with its aggressively priced 5230. Priced at Rs 10,000,the 5230 comes with a 3.2-inch widescreen and a sharp 640×360 pixel resolution. Unlike the 5800,this device allows you to add 20 people with their images in its contact bar. A lot of emphasis has been given on social entertainment and the phone comes preloaded with Nokias Ovi store,Facebook,MySpace and YouTube. However,the camera is a standard 2 megapixel with 3x digital zoom. Interestingly,the phone promises to provide seven hours talk time and 33 hours music playback.

Nokia 5530
The Nokia 5530 has everything the Nokia 5800 missed out on a solid metal finish,a smaller size and also two speakers located at the top and bottom of the phone. The 5530 also comes with proximity sensors to prevent accidental screen touches and thus save battery life. The phone can store up to 12,000 songs with the optional 16GB MicroSD card. The 5530 is equipped with WLAN facility,with a maximum download speed of 296 kbps and upload of 177 kbps. Unfortunately,this is not a 3G device. However,the 5530 will give only 4.9 hours talk time and 27 hours of music playback. But it is very affordable at Rs 13,999.

HTC Touch Viva
HTC was here before the iPhone with its Touchthe Windows Mobile,which was an instant hitand know the segment inside-out. But the Viva,priced at Rs 11,500,lacks some bells and whistles that most customers associate with HTC. There is no 3G or GPS,but you do get Wi-Fi and a revamped and fast TouchFLO interface similar to TouchFLO 3D. HTC has also managed to make the Windows Mobile messaging interface much more usable. You can select from several on-screen keypads,including a full QWERTY or a standard mobile-phone keypad. The Viva lets you flick through pictures on the screen and zoom in and out by rotating your fingers. The Viva sports a regular 2 megapixel camera,but lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack.

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