iphone clones

GIZMO GALLERY

It is has a 'buttonless' exterior, works on a finger-based user interface, looks enchanting and yet is not an Apple iPhone. It's the High Tech Computer's (HTC's) latest gadget, the HTC Touch which is built on the Windows Mobile 6 platform and adorned with an overlaying graphic user interface (GUI) called Touch FLO that lends a finger-based experience.

Design The Touch outdoes the existing crowd of phones in the market "� even the LG Prada, possibly its closest competition when it comes to design. Small and compact, the Prada is about the same size as the LG Chocolate. A simple design, with no slider, clam or candybar looks "� just one piece of technology with a couple of shortcut buttons.

HTC Touch, on the other hand, has an intuitive touch screen and animated software. The screen appears to distinguish between the pressure applied by a finger and stylus. This is very important for features such as scrolling through a web page with your thumb, or selecting text in a web page with your stylus. Even if one gets to the regular Windows Mobile programmes, there won't be a need to use the stylus to press those small buttons.

The good and the bad Inside this PDA, there is a 200MHz CPU, 64MB of RAM with 128MB ROM besides a 1GB microSD card, WiFi and Bluetooth. On the outside, the Touch features an impressive 2.8-inch QVGA screen with a 320×240 pixel resolution and a 2-megapixel camera.

It's a shame that the Touch's camera acts more like a glorified 1-megapixel camera. It is futile in low light or darkness, there is no flash included and the CMOS sensor fails to impress. Since a 200 MHz processor is nothing to boast about, when a few applications are active, the phone begins to slow down. Thus applications not in use should be closed completely. HTC's Task Manager makes it more convenient to shut down applications from the Home screen.

The LG Prada has a POP3/IMAP e-mail client that supports attachments and the built-in Microsoft Office document reader and PDF reader are pleasant surprises. But because of the Prada's limited memory (8MB of built-in memory), it can hold only 20 messages in your inbox; anything over 300KB gets summarily rejected.

There's a basic WAP browser and Opera Mini runs well if slowly primarily due to the 123 Mhz processor speed. The battery life is around 6 hours with HTC Touch, while it lasts 6.5-7 hours for the Prada.

Conclusion The LG Prada, priced at around $1000 (around Rs 41,000 and yet to be launched in India), may not be an all-singing all-dancing 3G-enabled video-messaging, diary-organising handset, but it is an incredibly stylish phone that is guaranteed to turn heads. The HTC Touch, on the other hand, is priced at Rs 19,900 (currently only for Airtel subscribers).