Since the much-hyped iPhone isn’t expected in South Africa before November this year, cellphone manufacturers are fighting fiercely for the rands of potential South African smartphone buyers.
The reasons why Americans flocked to Apple outlets in the United States in order to lay their hands on one of the most-talked-about gadgets in history are plentiful.
The iPhone’s instant success was probably due to four key reasons. The first, although subjective, is that it has the most beautiful industrial design of any cellphone fabricated up to now. Then, its multitouch user interface is revolutionary in the market, and third, Apple has a knack for creating endless hype around consumer electronics.
Also, a very beneficial feature of the iPhone is its proclaimed battery life of eight hours’ talking time and 24 hours’ of audio playback, beating all other smartphones currently on the market.
None of the phones mentioned in this article are just normal cellphones. These are smartphones, which differ from regular cellphones as they offer PC-like functionalities and full email and personal-organiser capabilities. Often one can use one’s smartphone as an external modem to connect to the internet or as a navigation device.
Now that the lines of gadget fans have dwindled and the iPhone frenzy has settled somewhat, the Mail & Guardian Online decided to look at three smartphones currently available on the South African market: the HTC Touch, the Samsung SGH-i600 and the i-mate JAMA.
There are a handful of other competitors in the market, such as the Blackberry Curve, Nokia E61, LG Prada, Palm Treo 750 and the Sony Ericsson K810i. Their specifications are listed in this table (PDF).
HTC Touch
The HTC Touch, which was launched in late June, is probably the closest counterpart of the iPhone — or an iPhone wannabe, depending on how one looks at it. On the positive side, it is an extremely smooth and well-designed smartphone with a user interface that allows access to the main functions of the phone by simply pressing or sliding one’s finger on the screen.
Although it’s fun playing around with the 2,8-inch (7,1cm) touch screen on the first day, it became frustrating when I used it continuously. While typing an SMS or email, or when using the internet, it is almost impossible not to fall back on the incorporated stylus. But because the stylus is too short, it caused cramps in my hand when I used it over long periods of time. In such moments I heard the voice of Apple CEO Steve Jobs reverberate: “Who wants a stylus? Nobody wants a stylus!”
While the much-adored iPhone and the flashy LG Prada are built from scratch as purely finger-operated user interfaces, the TouchFlo screen technology of the HTC Touch is just an application build on top of the Windows Mobile 6 operating system. This makes the HTC Touch a traditional, stylus-equipped smartphone that just happens to be quite usable with a finger for some tasks.
The rest of the key features of this GPRS- and Edge-supported Touch — such as the Outlook email straight to the phone, the two-megapixel camera, the Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi — all work flawlessly. For anyone who has the time to play around with a technology-packed smartphone for R4 500, this should be your pick.
Samsung SGH-i600
A sleek phone that doesn’t try to compete in the touch-screen sector, but which is nonetheless worth considering, is the Windows 5.0-powered Samsung i600. With a thickness of 11,7mm and a weight of 115g, the i600 is the thinnest and the lightest in the South African smartphone class (and the iPhone is just a tiny bit slimmer).
This bit of trivia is not what keeps the tongues wagging, however, because this lightweight smartphone offers a lot more. While the currently released iPhone lacks 3G and HSDPA, the i600 has 3G and HSDPA high-speed connectivity as well as UMTS, Edge, Wi-Fi GPRS and Bluetooth. In this respect, the Samsung topples the iPhone that, in its current form, isn’t well suited for a 3G country such as South Africa.
I used the i600 the most because it is a pleasure to use a smartphone that is a cellphone first and a PDA second. Samsung’s changes to the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system result in a much better user experience: everything works like it should and can be found easily.
On a negative note, the 1,3-megapixel camera isn’t state of the art, and if you have big fingers, you might struggle with the tightly aligned Qwerty keyboard. But with a price tag of R4 299, you can’t go wrong with this one.
i-mate JAMA
While all the cellphone makers are moving forward, i-mate seems to have taken a step backward. This toy-like, stylus-equipped smartphone — powered by Windows Mobile 5.0 — lacks 3G, HSDPA, Edge and Wi-Fi, and is equipped with Bluetooth 1.2, which is disappointingly slow.
To make matters worse, the built-in two-megapixel camera is the most dismal I have used in a long time and it is easily beaten by the Samsung phone’s 1,3-megapixel camera. On a positive note, the phone has a fast processor that lets you run all your programmes swiftly.
Although by far the cheapest option at R3 000, I was happy to swap the SIM card into my overall winner, the Samsung i600.