Top 10 Touch Screen Smartphones

It’s taken a little while, but finally, touch screen interface has become a pretty mainstream thing. In the past it would have been difficult to comprise a list of the top 10 touch screen phones, but with all of the options available to-date, it now isn't an issue at all.

The whole touch screen phenomena began back in 2007 with the release of the original Apple iPhone. I can still remember all of the hype. People pre-ordered their iPhones months in advance. At the time, I couldn’t justify the price tag, but with the beautiful 3.5-inch Multi Touch screen with pinch and zoom features, a sleek, gorgeous design, finger-friendly interface and an incredible Web experience, I understood why so many people were counting down the days until the iPhone’s release.

The iPhone displayed all of the potential that the mobile carrier market could tap into concerning keyboard-free phones. After the iPhone was released, every major mobile phone manufacturer decided to take a chance on designing their own versions of touch screen smartphones. Some were obviously very successful, but others…not so much. There are some smartphones that have users begging to have a physical keyboard back, but there are others who have users saying they’ll never go back to a keyboard again. There are some smartphones that offer the best of both worlds, by having a touch screen and a slide out keyboard, but the top 10 touch screen phones listed below are strictly touch screen with no keyboard. If you’re willing to sacrifice physical keys and go completely touch, then here are some phones to consider.

AT&T

Apple iPhone 4
The original touch screen smartphone is still going strong four years later. The iPhone 4 is sleek, gorgeous and offers so many different features. It has an incredibly fast processor, tons of apps, one of the best media experiences and a great camera. On AT&T it does have some reception issues and limited FaceTime video calling, but overall it is an awesome phone.

HTC Inspire 4G
Touch screen smartphones can be pretty expensive most of the time, but the Inspire is a very inexpensive exception. It is extremely powerful and features a vast amount of built-in apps and features. There are some issues with the Inspire’s “4G” speeds though. It just seems a little underwhelming.

Motorola Atrix 4G
The Atrix is an incredibly fast and powerful phone. It has a beautiful screen and incredible design. Different optional docks can even easily turn the Atrix into a desktop or laptop PC; however, despite these cool features, the smartphone can be a little buggy and the laptop dock for the Atrix is way overpriced.

Sprint

HTC EVO 4G
The EVO was the first WiMAX phone and is perfect for someone who is always on the Internet. It features excellent Web browsers with some Flash. It also has as great touch screen, two different cameras and Wi-Fi hotspot mode. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the best voice quality and the 4G coverage is pretty limited, but other than that it is a fantastic phone.

LG Optimus S
The Optimus S has tons of great features including Android 2.2, very valuable Sprint ID interface enhancements, mobile hotspot and really good battery life. The issues with this phone are that it doesn’t have the best screen resolution, CPU or camera, and the screen is just a bit small. Overall, the Optimus is a pretty good budget Android phone.

T-Mobile

T-Mobile myTouch 4G
The myTouch is incredibly well constructed and has incredible features including: the latest processor, Wi-Fi calling, hotspot mode and voice commands. The only issues with this smartphone are that it has some problems with bloatware and the fact that not everyone may like the UI skin.

Samsung Galaxy S 4G
The Galaxy S is absolutely gorgeous. It also is really fast with 4G HSPA+ data speeds, excellent music and video and a great battery life. The only real issue with this smartphone is that its TV app is a little buggy, but otherwise it’s a fantastic phone.

Verizon Wireless

HTC Thunderbolt
Verizon has been heavily promoting the Thunderbolt, and why not? This smartphone has lightning fast Internet speeds, a gorgeous design, simply elegant interface and lots of storage. The phone is incredible besides the fact that it is a little on the heavy side, occasional bugs and a pretty poor battery life when users are surfing or streaming on 4G.

Motorola Droid X
Droids hit the market as the iPhone’s competition, and they have done a pretty good job of stepping up to the plate. The Droid X features an incredibly fast processor, Wi-Fi hotspot mode, Bluetooth voice dialing, fantastic reception and noise cancellation. For some the Droid is just a little too big and bulky. There also is no way to turn off Blur and it won’t play HD content over an HDMI cable. These really aren’t huge issues though. The Droid X is the most powerful Android smartphone aside from the HTC Droid Incredible.

Apple iPhone 4
So, a short time ago, Verizon broke the barriers and began offering the Apple iPhone 4 right alongside AT&T. Verizon’s version has all of the same incredible features that AT&T’s iPhone offers, except for the lack of 4G on Verizon’s phone. Overall, it functions just as well as AT&T’s iPhone, so I guess it just depends on which service carrier you prefer and whether or not you really want 4G.

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Free Smartphones at Best Buy All December

Best Buy is offering an absolutely amazing deal right now. On Friday, December 3rd, they kicked off their latest smartphone promotion. They said that they will be offering at least four free smartphones every single day through the month of December.

Best Buy will be offering a phone from each of the four major U.S. wireless providers. On Friday Best Buy's deals consisted of Verizon’s HTC Droid Incredible, AT&T’s Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, Sprint’s LG Optimus S, and T-Mobile’s LG Optimus T.

To get the deal from Best Buy, customers have to sign up for a new two-year contract, or they must upgrade their existing account for another two years. Best Buy says that they will only have a limited number of devices in their stores for the promotion. The offer is also not retroactive.

These free smartphones will be available from all of the Best Buy stores, all 157 Best Buy Mobile specialty stores, and on Best Buy’s website.

"We were excited by the amount of consumer interest we received around our 'Free Phone Fridays' promotion in October, so we wanted to do it again only bigger," President of Best Buy Shawn Score said in a statement. "People want smartphones and we couldn't think of a better way to end the year for our customers than to offer free devices every day in December."

Best Buy did something similar to this in October where they offered free smartphones on every Friday of the month, and luckily for those who are looking to upgrade their phones, the retailer expanded it to every day of the month in December.

This is a great deal that anyone who is a customer of the top four U.S. wireless service providers can take advantage of. I know that I definitely need a phone upgrade and will definitely be looking into the deals that Best Buy is offering. If you need a new phone, be sure to check out Best Buy.

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Top 10 Touch-Screen Phones

These days, everything is going in the touch-screen direction. High-quality touch screens can be found on PCs, tablets, phones, GPS systems, digital cameras, and a variety of other different devices. By now, touch-screen interface has almost become mainstream.

The original iPhone that was released in 2007 is the device that sparked the touch-screen revolution. Consumers were fascinated by the beautiful 3.5-inch Multi-Touch screen found on the iPhone. Since then, every major phone manufacturer has come up with their own touch-screen smartphone. Some of the companies have succeeded, but others have failed miserably.

Three years after the release of the first touch-screen smartphone, there are plenty of phones that could make the top ten touch-screen phones list. Every one of the major U.S. carriers have at least one very successful touch-screen smartphone. If you’re looking for an amazing smartphone, here is a list of the best of the best.

AT&T

iPhone 4
The iPhone 4 has the most gorgeous touch-screen of any smartphone in my opinion. It also features a fantastic camera and the fastest iPhone processor yet. Apple’s app store has the greatest variety of apps that offer you anything you could need in a phone. Unfortunately with the iPhone 4, Apple has still not made voice calling top priority, which can be frustrating.

iPhone 3GS
Yes, the iPhone 3GS is not as fast as the iPhone 4, but it is still a great phone. This affordable smartphone features access to the thousands of apps that are also available for the iPhone 4, but you can get them for half the price for your iPhone 3GS. The iPhone 3GS is still a very popular smartphone that has all of the features you look for in an iPhone.

Samsung Captivate
The Captivate is perfect for AT&T users who simply do not like the iPhone. It is a fantastic smartphone that features a very fast processor, bright screen, amazing social networking hooks, and the ability to sync your phone with PCs.

Verizon Wireless

Droid Incredible by HTC
This smartphone has a great screen and lots of power. Droid phones are the iPhone’s biggest competitor. The Incredible truly is incredible. It has beautiful interface additions and good strong call quality.

Samsung Fascinate
For Verizon customers that aren’t really interested in a Droid smartphone, the Fascinate could be just what you are looking for. It has a gorgeous screen and is very light and slim. The Fascinate also features a fast processor and a loud speakerphone. One of the biggest disappointments with this smartphone is that it has very inaccurate voice dialing.

Motorola Droid X
The Motorola Droid X is the most powerful Android smartphone to date. It features a large 4.3-inch, 854 x 480 resolution screen that gives you tons of room to maneuver your finger around the screen. The smartphone has excellent reception and fantastic noise cancellation. The only thing to criticize is the size. Some people simply think the screen is too large.

Sprint

HTC EVO 4G
If you’re looking for a smartphone that is dedicated to providing great online access, the EVO is perfect for you. It is the first WiMAX phone to be offered in the U.S. It is perfect for streaming media, Web browsing, and getting your laptop online with Sprint’s 4G network.

Samsung Instinct HD
The Instinct HD is the first phone in the U.S. to be a true high-def video phone. It can easily record and display sharp HD video and features lots of great media features. Some of the issues are that it's expensive, takes a long time to boot up, and has a very poor battery life.

T-Mobile

Samsung Vibrant
This is T-Mobile’s super smartphone. It has a very bright screen, PC syncing options, great camera, and a free full version of Sims 3. This phone offers a lot of power and a relatively inexpensive monthly plan. Unfortunately, the phone does not support Bluetooth voice dialing or tethering, but it is still an excellent smartphone.

Samsung Highlight SGH-t749
The Highlight SGH-t749 from Samsung features a very responsive touch-screen and TouchWiz UI that is extremely easy to use. It also features great battery life. If T-Mobile customers are looking for an touch-screen smartphone that is straightforward and simple to use, the Highlight is the phone for them.

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Nokia N900 Smartphone on Sale

Dell Smart Business has the Nokia N900 Smartphone on sale until 6 a.m. September 3rd. The N900, which is normally listed for $599, can be purchased for $349.99 with free shipping with the coupon code: 5RMTRF1H8QS3DF.

This is a 3G Linux smartphone with built-in XTerm. It features a 600 MHz processor with up to 1GB of application memory. It is almost as powerful as the iPhone 3GS. There are thousands of fun and useful apps including: Tetris, Chess, AP News, Twitter, DocumentsToGo Microsoft Office reader, and more.

For some people the phone may seem a bit chunky, but it is still sleek and fits nicely in your hand. It features a 3.5-inch touch screen with 800 x 480 resolution. There are no hard keys on the front of the phone, but slide back the touch screen and reveal a full backlit keyboard. There is also a 5-megapixel camera and a widescreen video camera that can take DVD quality videos. There are 32GB of storage that can hold over 40 hours of video and up to 7,000 songs.

The Nokia N900 comes with T-Mobile service. It is perfect for anyone that likes using Linux. This sale won’t last for long. If you’re looking for a quick, stylish smartphone, this could be the phone for you.

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First LG Phone for T-Mobile

On June 30TH, LG introduced their first ever T-mobile phone, the LG Sentio. For being LG’s first phone with T-mobile, you would most likely expect something fabulous and show stopping but don’t exactly hold your breath. The Sentio is nothing more then an average, middle of the road type of phone. It does however have a nice smooth and sleek design, and its multimedia features work fairly well. Perhaps the most attractive part of the phone is that it is very affordable.

The Sentio has an incredible slim and stylish design and is quite compact. It is 4.2 inches long and 2.1 inches thick. It is one of the thinnest phones yet to hit the market at only 1.5 inches thick, and its one of the lightest as well weighing in at 3.3 ounces. Although the Sentio is not covered in steel or glass like most other high-end touchscreen phones, it is wrapped in a lovely soft slate gray plastic that grips well. Its smooth corners and edges add to the overall feel of the phone.

The front of the phone features a beautiful 3.0-inch touch-screen display. The Sentio has a resistive screen so it's not quite as responsive as the regular touchscreen that is used on more advanced touchscreen phones such as the iPhone. You have to push a little harder on the screen then you should have to in order to get results from the Sentio. One nice feature the phone possesses is its vibration feedback capability. Vibration Feedback is when there is a slight vibration each time you touch the screen, this allows you to feel the responsiveness. You are given the ability to adjust the type and intensity of the vibration.

You can customize the Sentio's home screen with widgets or application shortcuts. By merely tapping on the arrow on the right side of the screen, you can drag and drop widgets from the slide-out menu to the home screen. You can make any function of the phone into a widget shortcut icon. At the bottom row of the home screen are four additional shortcuts to the phone dialer, the contacts list, the Web browser, and the main menu.

In order to dial a number to make a phone call, you must use a virtual number keypad who’s icon is located at the bottom of the home screen. When you touch the icon your usual phone keypad will appear. The keys are large, and the number input area is quite roomy as well. As far as texting goes, you can stick with T9 predictive text on the nine-key keypad, or you can rotate the phone ninety degrees to the right to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. The QWERTY keyboard is spacious enough and is fairly easy to use. On the downside, the text input area is quite small making it somewhat hard to read your whole message as you type.

Underneath the 3-inch touch screen are three real non-touch screen buttons: Send, Back, and the End/Power key. All three keys have a nice appearance and are easy to press. Located on the left side of the phone are the volume button, the task menu key, and the headset/charger jack. Along the right side of the phone is the camera key, and the Sentio’s 3.0-megapixel lens is placed on the back. The camera is okay, but it certainly isn’t above average or anything. A screen lock key is located on the top of the phone and placed conveniently behind the battery cover is a microSD card slot.

The LG Sentio's phone book has the ability to hold 1,000 contacts with room in each entry for five numbers, three e-mail addresses, three instant-messenger IDs, a Web address, a company name, three street addresses, a birthday, an anniversary date, and a memo. Its standard features include a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, text and multimedia messaging, an alarm clock, a calendar, a notepad, a world clock, a tasks list, a calculator, a stopwatch, a unit converter, and a tip calculator. You also get voice command, instant messenger, e-mail, a HTML Web browser, Bluetooth, and GPS with Telenav Navigator support. For social networking fans, LG includes Social Buzz, an app for managing your various social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, on the Sentio.

Overall the Sentio has good call quality, posses the support for 7.2Mbps 3G networks, and has a rated battery life of 6 hours talk time and 13 days standby time. For the most part the Sentio is a fairly decent phone for its price of $69.99 with new two-year contract with T-Mobile.

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T-Mobile's Soon to Be Released Smartphone

T-Mobile will announce their latest smartphone, the Google Android device called the myTouch, on Monday. This will be the second T-Mobile smartphone to utilize Android, Google’s open-source mobile operating system. T-Mobile introduced the G1, which was the world’s first Google Android phone, last fall, but believes that the new myTouch will appeal to a wider variety of consumers.

This summer there has already been a flood of new and improved smartphones. Sprint Nextel’s network released Palm’s long awaited Pre, Nokia introduced their new touch-screen N97, and Apple presented their faster, superior iPhone 3G S. So how does T-Mobile plan on making the myTouch stand out among all the other smartphones? The answer is the personalization of the myTouch.

It is said that there will be no two myTouch phones that are alike. Consumers will be given the opportunity to completely customize their myTouch device with a variety of Android applications. T-Mobile representatives will even be available to assist customers with the set up of their new smartphones before they leave the store.

An example of how the different Android application will make the myTouch more personal can be found in an application called Sherpa. Sherpa uses GPS to assist smartphone users in finding restaurants, movie theaters, and other points of interest wherever they are. What is so cool about this application is that it will remember where you have been previously and will make recommendations based on your past searches. Sherpa will also give you a list of special events currently going on in the area and tell you how far away you are from them. This application will only be available through T-Mobile. The myTouch also includes unique Google applications such as easy upload to Picasa and YouTube. Other areas where consumers will be able to personalize their myTouch include the ability to add music, a personalized calendar, widgets, photos, and shortcuts to Web links.

The myTouch is produced by HTC and basically has the same hardware design as the Google Ion (HTC Magic). The Google Ion is thinner than the G1 and smaller than the iPhone. It has a 3.2-inch touch screen that offers 320 x 480 pixels of resolution. There is no physical keyboard on the Google Ion, and it features 3G and WiFi network support.

The myTouch will come in a variety of new assorted colors. It will come standard with 512 Megabytes of internal memory and allow support of microSD for external storage. The myTouch will come with a 4GB microSD card, but consumers will be able to add more storage if they want to.

T-Mobile is calling the myTouch their premier Android smartphone. T-Mobile customers will be able to get the new phone starting July 8, while non-customers will not be able to purchase the phone until early August. The phone is set to run around $199 with a two-year T-Mobile service contract.

T-Mobile is expecting great things with the Google Android myTouch, and considering all the facts, I can see why. The myTouch sounds like a chic new smartphone with about everything possible to offer. The price is certainly reasonable for what you are getting, and if you don’t mind having T-Mobile as your service provider, then you’re set. I think this will certainly be an interesting phone to watch. We’ll see if the myTouch can truly stand out from among the abundance of new smartphones on the market today.