Many owners do not need all the features found on a modern high-end smartphone, and in plenty of cases, paying the extra cost for features that seldom get used will be a waste of money. While Nokia has handsets such as its impressive N97 to compete with the leading smartphones from HTC and Apple, it also has a wide range of cheaper handsets designed for users who would like a large touchscreen device, but have no need for extras such as Wi-Fi or a super-high-megapixel camera.

The Nokia 5230 is a great new model in the Nokia Music Phone range, designed to be ideal as both a personal media player and a phone. The best thing about the Nokia 5230 is the display, which is both large at 3.2 inches, and also high-resolution. This makes it great for surfing the web, as well as browsing through your media collection. There is a regular 3.5 mm headphone jack, so you can keep using your favourite headphones, plus an FM radio.

In addition to its media playing capabilities the Nokia 5230 is pretty feature-rich for a mid-range smartphone, with its 2 Megapixel camera that can record video at 30 fps, and a GPS chip that allows it to work with Ovi Maps. The 5230 has a 3G HSDPA connection for fast downloading of new music and media, and the built in storage can be expanded by up to 16Gb with the use of a MicroSD card.

The speedy 3G connection means a great online browsing experience, making the Nokia 5230 great for keeping up to date with your email and Facebook contacts. The 5230 comes with the new Ovi Maps software, which together with the built-in GPS sensor, provide you with voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation, right out of the box, for free. The 5230 can also access the new Ovi store, where you can download extra applications and games for your phone.

If you require a powerful handset that can play the latest mobile games, would like a phone that can replace your digital camera, or serve as a portable video player, then the Nokia 5230 is probably not going to be on your list of prospective handsets. If your needs are more basic, however, then the Nokia 5230 is a great mid-range touchscreen smartphone that is definitely worth considering.

As smartphone adoption advances, buyers are starting to see a steady trickle down of high-end features to more affordable models. Technologies such as Wi-Fi and GPS can now be found in many cheaper handsets, with processing power now cheap enough to run full-featured smartphone operating systems such as the current version of Android.

The HTC Wildfire offers full smartphone functionality at an incredibly low price. Sharing many of the features of the top-end HTC handsets, such as the latest 2.1 version of Android with the proprietary Sense UI, and featuring a large 3.2 inch touchscreen, GPS, Wi-Fi and 3G HSDPA connectivity, the HTC Wildfire is a viable alternative to more expensive smartphones.

The HTC Wildfire uses a new, more stylish case design than some of HTC’s previous affordable handsets, and includes a high-quality 5 megapixel camera, LED flash, FM radio and regular 3.2mm headphone socket. In addition to the large LCD touchscreen, the HTC wildfire uses an optical trackpad that makes navigation a breeze.

There is strong software support for the HTC Wildfire with a large selection of custom widgets from HTC that let you keep up-to-date with streaming real-time updates from your social networking contacts. The Wildfire can also access the Android Market for apps and games, and its web browser runs Flash Light, which means that even advanced web pages looks great on the phone.

Previous budget HTC smartphones have come with underpowered processors that struggled to run Android at acceptable speeds. Fortunately the HTC Wildfire is pretty responsive, with only the occasional slowdown in menu’s betraying its cheaper CPU. More demanding games and applications can sometimes fare worse, but this is an acceptable price to pay for access to the Android ecosystem at such a low cost.

Deciding between the HTC Wildfire and mid-range handsets from other manufacturers will be decided by how badly you want an Android device. Hardware-wise, there are certainly better-looking handsets out there in the same price range, most running proprietary operating systems that work fine for most tasks. The advantage of owning an Android powered handset, with access to Google’s wide range of apps and games is a big one, however, and will sway many.

Choosing between the Wildfire and top-of-the-range Android devices, such as HTC’s own Desire, is less easily done. The higher resolution and faster processor found on the Desire do result in a significantly better user experience, but the price increase is also very large. It may be that in the Wildfire, HTC have created their best competitor for the Android handset consumer.

To a large degree, in recent years, RIM have been happy making modest upgrades to the devices in their line-up, slowly revising product lines to implement extra features. The BlackBerry Curve 3G 9300 is the latest addition to the popular Curve line of phones from RIM, and adds full 3G connectivity to the regular BlackBerry package of great physical Qwerty keyboard and comprehensive email and messaging support.

In addition to its new 3G support, the BlackBerry Curve 3G also retains Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The handset uses a regular 3.5mm headphone jack and has physical media controls along the top edge. On top of the outstanding physical keyboard, the Curve 3G has an optical track pad that makes navigation a breeze.

The BlackBerry curve 3G features the standard dedicated BlackBerry push email account, and also supports free instant messaging between BlackBerry owners. Buyers can look forward to a free upgrade to the new BlackBerry OS 6 in the near future, keeping the handset up to date with the newest RIM technologies. The current OS comes with excellent Facebook and Twitter integration, plus access to the dedicated BlackBerry app store where owners can download a great many free and paid games and applications.

RIM are beginning to face serious competition in the Enterprise handset market from other phone manufacturers eager to get the business users money. Previously, only handsets running the fairly dated Windows Mobile operating system could pose a challenge in terms of business functionality, but the arrival of push email and decent application support for both iOS and Android-powered devices is levelling the playing field. Even the absence of a physical keyboard is not quite the hang up it used to be, thanks to ever-improving fullscreen virtual keyboards and sensitive capacitive touchscreens.

In the face of these challengers, RIM is going to need to do more than just make modest improvements to its handsets. To be fair, recent revisions of the BlackBerry operating system and increasing focus on the consumer market with improved media playback features and advanced social networking options will help, but other issues will prove harder to fix. The most significant selling point of today’s smartphones is their large and growing app stores, with Apple leading the way, closely followed by Android and Microsoft. The absence of strong third party support for Nokia’s Symbian platform has created real problems for the world largest phone maker, and if RIM do not pay attention, then they may encounter the same long-term issues with their own custom OS.

These days it feels like every manufacturer is releasing ever cheaper touchscreen handsets. Phone builders are scrambling to produce ever more affordable devices, with it becoming increasingly difficult to find a handset with a plain numeric keypad, at least outside the bargain bins. It looks like the future will belong to the touchscreen, but at least for now those without the money or desire to buy a full smartphone will still need to accept some compromises.

The LG Viewty Snap GM360 is an affordable phone with high-end styling, a great camera and excellent call quality. Intended for users who want a touchscreen mobile device with great social networking functionality, but who also want to avoid paying smartphone prices, the Viewty Snap GM360 offers a sleek, 3 inch touchscreen design at a mid-range price level.

The resistive display on the Viewty Snap GM360 works well, and the 240 x 400 pixel resolution means small text is still sharp enough to read. The excellent 5 megapixel camera comes with a photo light and auto-focus mode and can capture video and upload pictures and video’s directly to social networking sites. The LG Viewty Snap GM360 makes a great media player, with expandable microSD storage and a standard 3.5mm audio socket.

Social networking takes center stage on the LG Viewty Snap GM360, with integrated widgets for Facebook and other networks, and a great full-screen landscape virtual Qwerty keyboard for quickly typing out long messages. The Viewty Snap supports GPRS, Edge and Bluetooth connectivity, and features one-touch uploads of videos and images. Another welcome feature is the displaying of contacts as animated avatars, where clicking on them brings up all available methods of contacting them.

You get three home screens with the Viewty Snap, the first for displaying widgets that can give instant access to applications and services as well as displaying status updates. The second home screen shows the Livesquare that acts as a repository for your animated contact avatars, enabling access to connection options and showing incoming calls and texts. The final screen allows quick access to up to eight of your most common contacts, to save time navigating through larger lists.

In summary the LG Viewty Snap GM360 is a good enough handset for its price range. The main disappointment is the use of a resistive rather than capacitive screen, although to be fair, few phones at this price point offer them. Another shame that the phone does not come with a proper LED flash, as the high spec camera would then be even more of a distinguishing feature. Despite these issues, most buyers will be pleased with the LG Viewty Snap, which compares well to similar priced handsets from other manufacturers.

When Apple launched the original iPhone, many existing phone manufacturers were dismissive, arguing that Apple had no real knowledge of the mobile market, and would never succeed. Instead, it was the manufacturers who turned out not to understand the type of device consumers wanted, and the huge sales of the iPhone have forced many into imitating Apples plain touchscreen design and icon driven user interface.

With the iPhone 4, Apple have created the best iPhone yet, and also, quite possibly the best Smartphone as well. The appearance of the Apple iPhone 4 has been radically redesigned, giving it a sharp, industrial style that looks and feels expensive. The standout feature of the Apple iPhone 4 redesign is the new Retina Display, a 960 x 640 IPS LCD screen that offers the clearest, most detailed images of any current mobile device.

In addition to the new screen, the Apple iPhone 4 also features a much-improved 5 Megapixel rear-facing camera with an LED flash, capable of taking digital-camera quality photo’s and recording video in HD. There is also a front-facing VGA camera that is used with the Apple iPhone 4′s newest feature, FaceTime, a video-calling technology that enables seamless transition from voice to video calling between iPhone 4′s over Wi-Fi connections.

In addition to the hardware upgrades, the Apple iPhone 4 comes with the latest version of the iOS operating system, which includes support for multi-tasking, improvements to email, folders and many other significant changes. Of course, the Apple iPhone 4 has great music and software support via iTunes and all the games and applications you could want. A new addition is iBooks, where you can purchase and read a wide variety of electronic books. Improvements in processor speed and battery life complete the package.

Other phone makers could be forgiven for feeling a little bit depressed about the iPhone 4. Just when devices from HTC and Samsung were at last beginning to be favourably compared with the iPhone 3GS, Apple goes and significantly raises the bar. The new design is magnificent, making most alternative smartphones feel distinctly cheap and old-fashioned in comparison. The super-high-resolution screen also puts Apple well ahead of the competition, with web browsing and reading small text all significantly improved on the higher-resolution screen.

The biggest innovation could turn out to be FaceTime however. For now Apples video-calling service is restricted to Wi-Fi due to carriers fears over bandwidth. Even with this restriction, Apples clever and straight-forward implementation will find many fans, especially when eventually the service is extended onto other Apple devices such as the Macbook range.