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2009 has seen several new phone interfaces enter the world. Lets take a look at three of the hottest.

LG Viewty Smart

The first Viewty was one of the most successful phones LG have ever made, and now, the true successor to the name has arrived in the shape of the LG Viewty Smart. Featuring the new touch-based S-Class UI, the LG Viewty Smart is an incredible phone to use, with slick animations and smooth transitions between screens and menus. As well as the 8MP camera in the LG Viewty Smart, you also get a stunning multimedia player, and super-fast internet access, making the LG Viewty Smart one of the coolest camera phones out there.

HTC Hero

Android is trying to take over the world, and its new home is the beautiful HTC Hero. 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 Hero also has a full, onscreen keyboard, and a sumptuous new interface called the Sense UI. You also get the Android Marketplace, which lets you download and install third party apps to your HTC Hero, and it ends up creating a smartphone that really can morph into whatever you want it to be. It is the one, the only, HTC Hero.

Palm Pre

So, there’s the LG Viewty Smart, with its S-Class UI. And then, there’s the HTC Hero, which gives Android a new interface. What does the Palm Pre offer that’s different? Well, one could talk about the WebOS interface it uses, as it’s unique in the annals of phone history. And indeed, there’s one feature of WebOS, directly related to the keyboard, that makes the Palm Pre so cool. Universal search. Now, many phones do that, but the Palm Pre does it so much more cleverly. Just start typing what you want to know about, from the front screen, and the Palm Pre will search your contacts, apps, music, pictures, and even the internet, to interpret and find what you’re looking for. That really is a cool feature, and it may well make the Palm Pre the coolest QWERTY phone out there. If you value the interface above all else, the Palm Pre is the phone for you.

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Social networking is one of the key things driving smartphone sales in the modern world. But which is the best phone for social networking? Let’s find out.

HTC HD2

If you’re talking big screens, there’s no way you can avoid the HTC HD2, because it holds the record for the biggest screen seen on a mobile phone. At a huge 4.3 inches, it is truly vast, and the high, 800×480 resolution makes it genuinely easy to use things like scrollbars in menus. However, the HTC HD2 actually does a very good job of making it so you don’t have to go into standard Windows menus that often, as on top of the operating system, the interface is HTC’s patented TouchFLO 3D setup, where everything is achieved through various finger swipes and sweeping gestures. It is truly intuitive, and it (along with the truly awesome 1GHz Snapdragon processor) is the reason why the HTC HD2 is such an unmitigated joy to use. Of course, it’s not all about being pretty, a phone needs to have decent features and the HTC HD2 has them in spades, from the 5 megapixel camera, through GPS, to incredibly fast HSDPA internet access (not to mention the superb Opera Mobile web browser). Most importantly, in terms of social networking, the HTC HD2 now includes dedicated Facebook and Twitter apps on the tabs menu, giving you easy access to your social news feeds.

Palm Pre

For ease of use and sleekness, nothing can touch the Palm Pre. With its WebOS operating system, the Palm Pre is easily the most intuitive phone on the market. Not only that, but the integration between apps on the Palm Pre is like nothing ever seen before, making it feel like the phone is, at times, doing your thinking for you. There’s never been a phone like the Palm Pre, and for that reason, it must surely be the phone of the year, so far.

Motorola DEXT

If we’re talking social networking, however, only one phone can be the obvious winner. The HTC HD2 scores points with its Twitter and Facebook feeds, and the Palm Pre has that aggregation of your contacts into one phonebook. But the best social networking phone has to be the Motorola DEXT. Part of the huge appeal of the Motorola DEXT is its brilliant new interface, which Motorola are calling MOTOBLUR. It’s designed to put all your social networking tools right on the front page of your Motorola DEXT, so staying connected with the world is easier than ever. You also get the Android Marketplace, which lets you download and install third party apps to your Motorola DEXT, and it ends up creating a smartphone that really can morph into whatever you want it to be.

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!