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The 3 big operating systems in the world of smartphones are always trying to outdo each other. Let’s see what each OS’s ‘ultimate’ phone is like.

Sony Ericsson Idou

Symbian Touch evolves in the Sony Ericsson Idou. There’s a reason for that statement: the Sony Ericsson Idou is the first ever handset to use Version 5.1 of the Symbian OS, and boy does it show. Fuse that together with a sleek, touch-friendly front-end, and it add up to the Sony Ericsson Idou being, very probably, the slickest Symbian phone yet produced. That’s not its big killer feature, however, since THAT comes in the form of the Sony Ericsson Idou’s camera, which weighs in at a mind-boggling 12 megapixels. Because of its huge camera and the amazing interface, as well as media playback and social networking better than we’ve yet seen on a phone, the Sony Ericsson Idou has to be one of the coolest phones ever to be produced!

HTC Magic

Android is trying to take over the world, and its new home is the beautiful HTC Magic. It has all the good stuff that made the first Android phone (the G1) good, but puts it all in a touchscreen-only body, which is both sleek and sexy. Since the keyboard has been removed, the HTC Magic also has a full, onscreen keyboard, a first for any Android phone, lining it up as a direct rival to the iPhone. You also get the Android Marketplace, which lets you download and install third party apps to your HTC Magic, and it ends up creating a smartphone that really can morph into whatever you want it to be. It really is a kind of magic; it’s the HTC Magic.

Toshiba TG01

So, on the Symbian front, you have the Sony Ericsson Idou, wowing us with that enormous camera. In terms of Android, there’s the HTC Magic, with the superb Android Marketplace. But Windows Mobile goes down a different route. You see, Windows Mobile needs two things to run at its best: a powerful processor and a big display. Well, say hello to the Toshiba TG01, the phone with the fastest processor AND the biggest display in the history of phones! Weighing in at 1GHz and 4.1 inches respectively, those specs mean that the Toshiba TG01 will run Windows Mobile more smoothly than any other phone in existence; as well as that with that immense screen, the Toshiba TG01 makes drilling down into menus, and actually getting into the internals of Windows, so much easier. If power is your thing (and lets be honest, who doesn’t want a powerful phone?), then the Toshiba TG01 is the phone for you!

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It’s not enough for smartphones to be full of features these days; you have to be able to add extra software onto them for extra ‘phone coolness’. Let’s take a look at the world of mobile app stores, and see how they’re changing the way we think about phones.

HTC Magic – Open Source with Android

Let’s start this rundown of mobile app stores with one that’s already out there in the wild, on a phone that’s due to land very soon. We’re talking Google Android, with their Android Marketplace, and the phone is the HTC Magic.

The HTC Magic will potentially have the widest range of software available for you to add it, for the simple reason that Android, the Google OS that powers the HTC Magic, is completely open source. In other words, anyone has access to the source code, and can tailor it to fit their software needs. That’s going to lead to a massive breadth of software for the HTC Magic, some notable examples of which are a barcode scanner, to let you scan products, and find them near to where you are; and a real world info service, that uses imaging from the camera and GPS to put up real time info on the screen of the HTC Magic, about whatever you’re pointing the cam at. Not, that’s clever!

Toshiba TG01 – making Windows even easier to customise

Next, we move on to an operating system that you’ve been able to download extra software for, for YEARS: Windows Mobile. However this year, Windows Mobile (showcased best in the stunning Toshiba TG01) will be getting its own dedicated app store, run by Microsoft themselves. In fairness, this will probably not be vastly different to the range of software download stores already out there, but crucially, you’ll be able to download software directly onto your Toshiba TG01, which is a new touch on the old formula.

The Toshiba TG01 is going to be one of the best phones for running third party software, too, as it has both the fastest processor and biggest screen of any mobile phones on sale. So, if you’re after the power of Windows Mobile, and extra software that will run like a dream, the Toshiba TG01 is the phone for you.

Palm Pre – the easiest phone ever to make software for?

Finally, we come to a brand new phone, with a brand new operating system: the much-anticipated Palm Pre, which shows a different approach again to third-party software. Where the HTC Magic goes for open source and a vast breadth of software, and where the Toshiba TG01 goes for sheer power combined with Windows Mobile, the Palm Pre aims to have two factors above all else: intuitive handling, and incredible, tight integration between different apps on the phone. Take, for example, a Palm Pre app that looks up movie showtimes: it can find out, using your phone’s GPS, where your nearest cinema is, book tickets online for you, and then instantly put a note in your calendar to say you’re busy going to the cinema. Add to that the simple fact that the Palm Pre is probably the easiest smartphone to create software for (using simple web techniques like html code), and you can only come to one conclusion: the Palm Pre may well be the best ‘downloadable app’ phone of them all!

Mobile apps are growing in popularity, every day, with all the top smartphones supporting downloadable software. Let’s take a look at 3 of the newest and best phones for using apps with.

Nokia N97 – Symbian

As it runs on the newest, touch version of Symbian, you would expect the Nokia N97 to support a range of apps. Well, it does, and not only that, but the Nokia N97 (as well as all Nseries phones, in future) will soon be getting its very own app store, called the Ovi Store. This’ll make adding apps to your Nokia N97 a breeze, and give you access to a whole range of extra features. Possibly the most powerful app that’s headed our way from Nokia, though (and it will surely find its way onto the Nokia N97), is Point ‘N’ Find, a service that lets you point the phone’s camera at an object (currently only film posters, but more services are planned), and then the phone auto-searches for info, by recognising the object. So, just point your Nokia N97 at a movie poster, and then you’ll be able to watch the trailer, look at images from the film, or even book tickets online, all from your mobile!

HTC Magic – Google Android

However, if you want a phone with a true app store already set up, then you need the HTC Magic, complete with its Android Marketplace. The HTC Magic makes it easy for you to download extra software, by simply pressing the Marketplace icon, and selecting the software you want. It’s that easy, with the HTC Magic. The coolest app seen for Android so far? Simply point your HTC Magic at a barcode, and it will find the product for you, and not only find it for the cheapest price online, but use the GPS to find out where it’s in stock near you!

Palm Pre – WebOS

However, there’s a phone that can top even the magic tricks of the HTC Magic. That phone is the Palm Pre, and it brings a whole new level of clever-ness to its apps. Take, for example, the Fandango app which should be available at the time the Palm Pre gets launched. Like Point ‘N’ Find on the Nokia N97, it allows you to find movie times online, and book tickets for wherever your nearest cinema is (albeit without the camera trickery). However, the Palm Pre goes one step further, by automatically updating your calendar with an appointment to go to the cinema, and it can even automatically notify your friends, who are going with you, that the tickets are booked. The Palm Pre pulls all its features together, and links everything in to make your life as easy as possible. It’s also said to be one of the easiest phones in the world to code for, so the chances are that if you can think of any feature you’d like, someone’s already created it for your Palm Pre!