As we head into the latter half of 2008, the world of mobile phones is set for an epic showdown, between 3 of the big names in the arena of smartphones: Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. But who will win?

Nokia N96 - the Nseries contender

Staring the list is an upcoming mobile phone from Nokia, the brand new N96, their newest flagship phone. And what a phone it is, powered by Symbian Series 60, and packing a 5 megapixel camera, GPS, awesome multimedia player, and with support for Mobile TV. The Nokia N96 even has a kickstand on the back, to hold up the phone up while you watch videos. How many mobile phones can you say that about? Oh, and it also comes with support for the new NGage gaming platform, from Nokia, something that makes games on mobile phones as good as games on their console counterparts (more or less). The Nokia N96 looks to have it all!

Ah, but there's a problem, because this Nokia has some competition from Samsung...

Samsung i8510 - the Nokia-Beater?

Based on the same Symbian interface as the Nokia N96, the Samsung i8510 actually manages to pack even more into its slim frame. Surprisingly, of these two mobile phones, the Samsung one is actually the more powerful! It has just all the features of the Nokia N96 (minus the NGage stuff, although it still has games), but it trumps it easily in the camera department, as the Samsung i8510 is one of the first mobile phones to have a huge 8 megapixel camera. Let's see the measly 5 megapixels (never thought I'd hear myself say that) on the Nokia try to compete! Other than that, the two mobile phones are pretty evenly matched, so it's going to come down to whether you're a Nokia fan, or a Samsung fan, or whether you want better gaming, or a better camera. That's what are going to be the deciding factors between these two mobile phones.

Since they’re so powerful, what else can even match them?

Sony Ericsson X1 - the serious one

On paper, the Sony Ericsson X1 can't come close to the other two mobile phones. It's camera's not as good, for a start (only 3 megapixels), but... it has something in its favour. The Sony Ericsson is the only mobile phone on this list to feature 2 crucial things: a MASSIVE, full touchscreen and a QWERTY keyboard. So, in other words, unlike the Nokia and Samsung mobile phones, this is more of a PC in your hand. And that's certainly accurate, as it's powered by Windows Mobile. And it has GPS, like the others, and HSDPA, in this case, up to 7.2Mbps, and in the Sony Ericsson, you also get WiFi. But it's the software that is the real draw, because of these 3 mobile phones, the Sony Ericsson is the closest to being a teeny tiny version of a full-on computer. Full internet using Internet Explorer, Outlook, full office support, easy sync to the PC, and tons upon tons of third-party software set the Sony Ericsson X1 apart from the other mobile phones, in terms of useful functionality. And that leaves us at an interesting conclusion. These 3 mobile phones might not actually come into conflict, since they all excel at different things. The Samsung has the best camera. The Sony Ericsson lets you do the most productive work on it.

About The Author...

Expert on mobile phones, having worked in the industry for over 7 years.

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