videos.
Of the ten models discussed here, the Nokia N97, the Samsung Galaxy, and the Samsung Omnia II have the best three cameras. Each has a 5-megapixel lens, autofocus, and an LED flash. The not-yet-released HTC Hero has a 5-megapixel camera, too, but no flash. Three of the ten smartphones also have secondary front-facing cameras for video calls: the Nokia N97, the HTC Touch Pro2, and the Samsung Omnia II (see "Five Tips for Great Photos With Your Cell Phone").
The iPhone 3G and the Palm Pre are only smartphones in this cohort that can't record video (for the Pre, video recording is coming in a future update). The new iPhone 3GS adds video-editing features and can upload video directly to YouTube. Thanks to the 1.5 Android software update (see "Apple iPhone 3GS Takes Aim at... the Flip?"), the three Google Android phones--HTC Hero, T-Mobile myTouch 3G, and Samsung Galaxy--can upload video straight to YouTube as well.
GPS is very nearly a standard feature on touchscreen smartphones these days, with only the Nokia 5530 omitting the technology. And if you're a cell phone photo buff, you may be able to use your phone's built-in GPS capabilities to generate automatic tags (called geotags) that indicate where each picture is being taken. In addition, all phones except the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3G have an electronic compass option to identify the direction you're heading toward (see "Geotag Your Digital Photos").
Only three of the ten smartphones come with an FM radio tuner: the Nokia N97, the Nokia 5530, and the Samsung Omnia II. The tuner on the HTC Touch Pro2 is factory-locked, so your access to the feature depends on your wireless carrier. One nice Nokia N97 feature is its ability to stream music to your car radio via its built-in FM transmitter.
The T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the HTC Touch Pro2 are the only phones in our group that lack a 3.5 mm headphone jack. This is a common omission with HTC-manufactured phones, which instead depend on a proprietary USB connection to double up as a headphone port.
All ten phones do a fairly good job of browsing the Web, though the two iPhones and the Palm Pre are at the top of the list. The HTC Hero will be the first model to offer built-in Adobe Flash support; other Android phones, along with Nokia and Palm models, will have the feature later this year. Currently, the Nokia N97 uses a scaled-down version of Flash called Flash Lite.
Connectivity, Storage, and Battery
This year's smartphones are the best yet at conserving battery life. Large screens (like those on the iPhones and on the HTC Touch Pro2) tend to guzzle power, but handsets such as the Samsung offerings (which feature OLED screens) achieve long battery life. HTC claims that its HTC Hero will last for up to 10 hours of talk time hours or 750 hours of standby.
Smartphones that support multitasking--such as the Palm Pre, the Nokia N97 and the HTC Hero--tend to have shorter battery lives, owing to the power strain on the CPU. The only touchscreen smartphones in our review that come equipped with a nonremovable battery are the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 3G.
The models with the largest amount of storage space out of the box are the iPhone 3GS and Nokia N97, each of which has 32GB of built-in storage (the iPhone 3GS comes in a 16GB model as well). Except for the iPhone models and the Palm Pre, all of the smartphones support expanded storage via microSD cards; you can pick up a 4GB SanDisk microSD card today for $5 (excluding shipping and handling) from any of several online merchants.
Wi-Fi connectivity has become a standard across the board, as has 3G (except on the Nokia 5530). Even
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