LG Cookie KP500 is a splendid cell phone priced in an
inexpensive range. Without a doubt, this phone has proven
itself as a popular buy with its touch screen capability
and wide array of functionalities - of which we would like
to mention - 3 inch full touch sensitive screen, intuitive
user interface, motion sensor, handwriting recognition, and
a 3.0 mega-pixel camera.

First Impressions: the entire presentation is unfussy and
exudes a sense of undemanding usability — an issue
that many expensive touchscreens with a plethora of
functional options have not been able to offer. However, to
make it both sturdy and cheaper, the touchscreen is based
on the resistive technology which means that glass is not
used, making the screen a bit compromised in terms of
intuitiveness. However, the pressure that has to be applied
to move around the icons on the screen isn't too demanding
and once you get used to it, the entire process should not
be uncomfortable, as the screen is responsive. Unlike many
other touch screen cell phone, the LG Cookie has 3 physical
buttons located below the display for quick one-touch
functions.

Exploring Further: there are some smart conceptual elements
in the KP500, like the home screen display widgets that can
be easily moved around and then placed exactly where
wanted. Widgets would include the all important calender,
organizer, standard clock and shortcuts to other functions
which the user may customize accordingly. Further, an
interesting flicking option is provided, i.e. upon flicking
left/right you gain access to the home page's list of the
recorded contacts in an easy-to-call thumbnail format. This
is a smart way of reducing the dependability on the
touchscreen operations and inducing something new. There is
a standard keypad on view but it does offer the option of
typing by using the predictive text option or the QWERTY
keypad. Something that was not expected in the LG Cookie
— hand-writing recognition that isn't just a gimmick
but actually works very well but it takes time to use it as
the entire process is a bit tedious. It has the standard
TransFlash micro-SD that supports up to 16 GB of memory.
Bluetooth v2.1 is offered along with A2DP and it supports
WAP 2.0, xHTML and HTML browsers.

Conclusion: LG Cookie does not pit itself against the
iPhone. Instead, it offers itself as an alternative touch
screen phone for users who want one without paying much of
a premium. It should be recognized that the LG Cookie is
not meant for comparison with the high end touch screen
cell phones currently on the market. In light of this, this
phone has done well in terms of functionality. With
features such as photo viewer and a motion sensor, the LG
Cookie tries to create a niche for itself in the market as
a low-priced but high-performance touchscreen option and to
a large extent, it does succeed in this attempt.

One of the more featured packed phones available on the
market, the Samsung Impression may be the phone you are
looking for with its heart throbbing features and
attractive (and should we also say gorgeous) outlook. With
its large vibrant touch screen and full physical slide out
QWERTY keyboard, this phone is pretty much geared up!

The most impressive fact about this phone is the AMOLED,
(Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode), technology
that's making its debut in the United States. For all those
potential customers out there, this translates into the
brightest and finest colored display you've ever seen on a
phone before. You'll be surprised at how clearly you can
see the screen in any setting including the sunny outdoors.
The vibrant colors and the outstandingly clear details make
the display of the Impression, its biggest USP.

Viewing your photos or videos on the 3.2" inch wide touch
screen which supports up to 262,000 colours and a
resolution of 240 x 400 pixels, is nothing short of being
an enjoyment. What's more, the addition of unique features
like a proximity sensor that gets the display to turn off
when it's brought close to the face and the lesser power
consumed by the display shows the consideration and the
quality that went into the creation of this slick and
smooth mobile phone.

The Impression is styled to appear like a candy bar with a
full QWERTY keyboard that can be accessed by tipping the
phone on its side and sliding it up. Samsung has done a
good job with the QWERTY keyboard, making the keys spaced
out sufficiently for users to type with improved
convenience and ease. If that's not to your liking, you
also have the option to use the touchscreen keyboard which
offers both T9 and QWERTY.

Other noteworthy features would be the intuitive TouchWiz
interface, the 3.0 MP camera and GPS. AT&T Impressions use
a MEdiaNet browser and a 3g connection which are
impressively fast. It takes around thirty seconds to load
pages. The browser can display in both portrait and
landscape modes, also allowing users to easily switch
between the touch keyboard and the slide out QWERTY
keyboard.

The 3.0 megapixel camera allows you to take good pictures
that appear even better on the large and vivid display and
you have an array of photo editing and enhancing features
as well that are easy to use and only require a couple of
clicks to accomplish.

Call reception and voice quality is above par on this
phone. The speaker phone facility was good enough to make
myself heard and to hear the other person as well even when
using it on the road and the advertised battery life of 250
hours proved an accurate estimate.

This much awaited phone has been the talk of the town since
it was announced in Feb 2009. At the time of the
announcement Sony had predicted the launch of this phone in
the 2nd half of 2009; however, rumors suggest that it may
be on sale in Oct or Nov 2009. During a recent visit to a
press conference we got an opportunity to get a feel of
this phone. IDOU is just a prototype name for this model
which is still unnamed. 'Idou' in Japanese means 'a change'
and looks like this phone is going to change the way we
look at phones.

This phone comes with a 12 megapixel camera that is powered
by autofocus, a Xenon flash, LED flash for video recording,
Smile Shutter technology (it only captures an image when a
person is smiling, how cool is that!), geo-tagging and face
detection. It also has all the advanced features such as
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, A-GPS, microSD memory slot, USB 2.0
connectivity, touchscreen, HSDPA and an accelerometer, this
means that the phone detects the angle in which it's being
held and can change the screen to portrait or landscape
view. Sony Ericsson IDOU has a 3.5 inch touch screen that
occupies a large part of the phone. The touchscreen is very
responsive and easy to use. You can use the touchscreen
function on the display to access the camera and phonebook
via shortcuts; in addition, there are touch music player
controls on the display. You can also access the main menu;
the video player, messages, and the search option, there
are dedicated keys for each of these at the bottom of the
display.

On the right side of the phone are the volume rocker, media
player controls and a camera shutter. The left has a
headset jack/charger port. It's disappointing that the
phone has only one jack and Sony doesn't provide another
jack for the headphone. On the top of the display there is
a secondary camera which has been designed for video calls.
It is well placed and aided with a light sensor with
detects ambience lighting; this enables the camera to
adjust the brightness of the screen display depending on
the environment' s lighting condition.

As the IDOU has not been officially released, we are unable
to review it completely. If the software remains stable the
IDUO will definitely be a phone to have. At the moment Sony
is enjoying the anticipation in the market and is
heightening it by keeping mum. It hopes to be able to
reveal all soon including the official name of the IDOU
phone.