It's either bold or chocolate for smartphone fans

LG’s Chocolate BL40
Price: Rs 25,000

LG’s Chocolate BL40, an addition to its premium Black Label range, is by far the next best option after Apple iPhone. You have to give it to LG for designing a screen that makes images look so crisp — a monster resolution of 345 x 800 pixels helps.

The phone radiates quality with its solid weighty feel and tempered glass screen. Being skinny works in favour of this smartphone and the sleek piano-black cover with red accents makes the device alluring to any smartphone user.

A bright TFT display, which measures 4 inches diagonally, comes into its own when viewing HD videos or full-screen web pages. What clinches the deal is that it won’t make you squint while you watch content on it. Better still is the web browsing experience on LG BL40. With video as its forte, it is no surprise to find it is compatible with DivX, XviD and MP4 formats, making the Chocolate a true visual experience. There’s also the much sought after 3.5mm headset port, which enables you to plug in your own set of earphones. Coupled with Dolby mobile sound, the Chocolate is easy on the ear as well as the eye. The camera is a decent 5-megapixel with autofocus and an LED flash, and is definitely one of the better cameras we have used on any recent smartphone.

The capacitive touchscreen on LG Chocolate efficiently responds to taps and strokes. It supports multitouch too — so you can pinch to zoom into pages and photos. Sadly, this feature did not work as smoothly as Apple’s iPhone.

A range of fun gestures on BL40 can take you from the main screen to various screens. For instance scribble ‘M’ on the screen and you go straight to messages, while ‘C’ gets you to compose text. The handset packs in nice touches, including a messaging screen that splits in two, allowing you to read your messages alongside the inbox.

The main downside of this phone and other LG smartphones is that there isn’t a way to expand the mobile apps, like Apple, Microsoft and Google have for their range of phones. It would be nice to have the ability to access an app store and download both free and paid apps to add to what the phone can do. Another minor gripe we had was that, for a multimedia handset, 1.1GB of internal memory is being tightfisted. Although BL40 supports memory cards of up to 32GB, this needs to be bought separately. Battery, like other smartphones, seems inadequate and runs out after 4.5-5 hours of optimal usage.

Sure, it’s expensive at Rs 25,000 and the user interface isn’t as intuitive as it could be, but the combination of looks and features does make BL40 stand out.

Pros 

 

Glossy and fashionable design 
 

A spacious QWERTY keypad in horizontal mode

Cons

Disappointing browser stability 
 

Poor battery support

BlackBerry Bold9700
Price: Rs 32,000

When it comes to stylish smartphones, you can’t give BlackBerry Bold 9700 a miss. Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry handsets, has tackled the number-one concern about the original Bold — its size — and introduced a smaller smartphone that is extremely capable and looks good.

RIM has ditched the trackball navigation in favour of an optical mouse. As long as users take some time to adjust to the sensitivity of the optical mouse, it can be a great way to interact with the menus on the 9700’s screen.

Compared with the previous Bold, the new BlackBerry Bold 9700 features a faster processor, an updated OS, and a sleeker design. It also has an upgraded camera, with a 3.2-megapixel sensor, and the ability to record video, bringing the device in line with the BlackBerry Storm. In a world of 5-, 8- and 12-megapixel camera phones, this may not sound like much but the camera still produces decent-sized images that can be printed, uploaded to your favourite social networking site or emailed.

The upgraded operating system on Bold 9700 puts up a new face to RIM’s ageing, yet nicely skinned, operating system, and seems to do a good job of it. There is a decent number of apps available on BlackBerry’s online store, but it does not hold a candle to Apple’s App Store. BlackBerry handsets are yet to rise up to the level where they can challenge the web browsing experience provided on an iPhone or Android-based phones and the Bold 9700, too, is no exception. That said, you can still browse the web on the new Bold, but probably you won’t have a desktop-like experience.

The good news is that even with Wi-Fi on, the battery survived for eight hours straight with constant email usage, BlackBerry Messenger usage, and heavy browsing. At Rs 32,000, the phone can be a great upgrade for those looking to switch their business phones. There are few reasons to skip this device.

Pros

Optical trackpad 
 

Compact form-factor

Cons

Poor browsing experience n Takes time to boot and launch multimedia apps