1 Samsung Galaxy Ace 2

The original Ace sold by the skipload. The Ace 2, priced just shy of £250 when bought off-contract, improves on its predecessor with a brawnier dual-core processor and a larger, higher-resolution 3.8-inch touchscreen.

Meanwhile, stuff that marked out the Ace as a bargain, such as up microSD support of up to 32GB of storage and its cute, compact form factor, are unchanged. Hey, if it ain’t broke…

2 HTC One V

With contract prices starting from £15.50, the HTC One V is perhaps at the more expensive end of anyone’s definition of what constitutes a cheap Android phone. But for that tiny bit of extra outlay, you’re really getting a mid-range kit.

And this is very much in evidence in the spec sheet. Beats by Dre audio? Check. Screen that at 3.7-inches is knocking on the door of larger, much more expensive kits? Check. The latest Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android? Check.

And you get all that wrapped up in a phone with the weighty, premium feel that HTC is known for.

3 HTC Explorer

From the first-ever PAYG Android kit, the game-changing HTC Magic, HTC has form with cheap phones.

Although it comes in at a somewhat portly 12.9mm thick, the Explorer remains a cute and compact bit of kit. But crucially still makes room for a 3.2-inch touchscreen, a three-megapixel camera and the last-but-one Gingerbread version of Android.

The tech gets the nod in this list because it teams the complete Sense experience into a budget handset, including lock screen shortcuts and seven virgin homescreens to populate with widgets and apps.

4 T-Mobile Vivacity

Network-branded phones have a bad reputation. Often justifiably so. But don’t let that put you off T-Mobile’s Vivacity.

Priced keenly at £90 on pay as go, it takes more than a few design cues from the iPhone 3GS – no bad thing in our book, given that we prefer it to the phone usually touted as Jonathan Ive’s masterpiece.

And although it’s not as slick as an Apple device – what is, in fairness? – it’s still a very decent handset for the money with a feature set that takes in a five-megapixel camera, a 3.5-inch screen with an unexpectedly high pixels per inch count and Android Gingerbread out of the box.

The weak processor means there’s scant chance of an update to Ice Cream Sandwich. But at this price, you’d have to be pretty optimistic to expect one in the first place.

5 Huawei Ascend

Exclusive to Vodafone for a price expected to be in the region of £15 per month, the Huawei Ascend’s glassy exterior with a metal trim gives it the feel of a handset that’d set you back a lot more. The four-inch screen also looks like it belongs on a costlier kit. In size if not in resolution.

Other key specs take in a five-megapixel snapper with autofocus and flash and Android 2.3 out of the box.

6 HTC Evo 3D

Launched into an ever-more cut-throat market for top-end Android kit, HTC’s 3D capable handset didn’t set sales charts alight. And so within a few months had been pretty heavily discounted.

Now up for grabs at £20.50 on Vodafone, you get a handset with front and rear-mounted cameras and the same cutting-edge parallax tech as the Nintendo 3DS that lets you record 3D video, take eye-popping snaps and 3D playback. And all without the need for silly specs to get the effect.

You’re also getting a pleasingly weighty, very HTC bit of kit, with a lush 4.3-inch Super LCD display, pre-loaded 3D content, a dual-core processor and expandable memory.

It might not be cheap compared to some of the handsets here, but you’re getting an incredible amount of phone for your money. And it’s for that reason that it’s made our list.

7 Orange San Francisco 2

Another sub £100 kit on pay as you go or £10.50 per month on contract, the sequel to Orange’s original city-themed blower. This time you get Android 2.3 in place of the creaky 2.1 version and a five-megapixel camera instead of 3.1 megapixels. Meanwhile, the 3.5-inch screen is unchanged in size or resolution.

If thrift is your thing, the San Fran 2’s appeal is sweetened further by the fact that if you get it on contract you’ll also qualify for cheap cinema tickets and two for one scran at Pizza Express.

8 LG Optimus 3D

Like HTC’s 3D effort, this phone’s price fell substantially not long after release. And like the Evo 3D, it features 3D gaming, media playback, video recording and still snapping and a 4.3-inch screen and dual-core processor.

Shop around and you can get it free from £18 per month.

9 HTC Sensation

Orange is offering the original Sensation, a phone which not too long ago was at the forefront of HTC’s 2011 charge, for free at £20.50 per month.

Well reviewed at the time, the Sensation features a weighty but robust aluminium shell, a 4.3-inch screen with 540 x 960-pixel resolution and a responsive phone with oodles of scope for customisation. If you don’t mind having ‘last year’s phone’, you’re quids-in.

10 Samsung Galaxy Y

Samsung’s branding for its phones isn’t always as clear as it might be. The ‘Y’ tag here is a case in point.

But don’t worry too much about that. Pretty much anything with ‘Galaxy’ in the title is worth your smartphone dollar. And with its pocket-friendly dimensions and smooth feel and cheap and cheerful spec sheet (think three-megapixel camera, 832MHz processor and three-inch touchscreen), it’s a goodish phone at a good price.

Square might just get some competition in the form of the PayAnywhere card payment system, especially when the latter has just announced that they will be rolling out their very own credit card reader before the month is over. Backed by North American Bancard, the PayAnywhere mobile payment system has every intention to stamp its mark on the masses, especially against other of the more recent launches, by offering a “free” card reader and no monthly fee as added incentives. Verifone and Square will be its competitors here, and as with most great rivalries, there will be plenty of similarities as well. The PayAnywhere card payment system will feature a reader that plugs into a headphone jack.

You will need to fork out $10 for the PayAnywhere reader first, although it will come with an automatic rebate that will be credited back once $150 in sales is processed. There is no monthly fee to worry about, although PayAnywhere will take 2.69% for each transaction in terms of commission. That sounds like a whole lot when you are a huge spender, but then again, it might also be worth investing in for merchants as more and more folks own smartphones these days, and this target market could be a potential goldmine.

HTC Titan II has already gone through the Fly or Die ringer, but the real determining factor for these phones is the level of competition surrounding them. In the case of the Titan II, the HTC/Microsoft partnership is most threatened by more HTC and Windows-powered phones, namely the Lumia 900 and the HTC One X.

So what do these phones have that the Titan lacks? How does the Titan wipe up the floor with them?

Well, that’s why I’m here, and why we’ve made this lovely graphic for you.

Truth be told, specs really don’t matter anymore, especially specs like processor clock speed and (I’m sorry to say it) megapixel count on cameras. What really matters is your preferred operating system, display size/resolution, and comfort with design.

When weighing these three phones against each other, the similarities are abundant, as are the subtle differences. For example, the Lumia 900 will net you $100 less than either of the other two phones. At the same time, it’s a touch smaller than the Titan and the One X, and if you prefer HTC hardware to Nokia’s then that doesn’t really matter.

I happen to be a pretty huge fan of the Lumia 900 simply because Windows Phone can pull off its stupid 480×800 resolution requirement on a 4.3-inch screen much better than it can on the Titan’s 4.7-inch display. Past that, the phones are quite similar. The Lumia feels a bit more premium in the hand, yet HTC does an excellent job of making even their plastic phones feel high-end.

If Windows Phone is your flavor, this is definitely a tough call. Good luck.

If it’s HTC that tickles your fancy, it all comes down to the OS. Do you prefer Sense 4 on top of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, or would you prefer to play with Microsoft. The One X specs slap down the Titan II like Daniel LaRusso at the beginning of The Karate Kid, but as I mentioned earlier, specs matter less and less these days. Where you’ll really win with the One X is the 4.7-inch 720p display. If you can tote it around comfortably, it really doesn’t get much bett.

Source; http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/04/htc-titan-ii-review-head-to-head-with-the-lumia-900-and-one-x/

The latest in what I like to call pro-point-and-shoots (I’d put the Canon G12 and the S95 in this category), the TG-1 from Olympus promises high-speed, f2.0 snapshots in a body that can take a lick and, potentially, keep on ticking.

When we last saw Olympus, they were killing it with their micro 4/3s models. This one, at 12-megapixel shooter, is a little bit different but it still is compelling enough to carry as a second camera. It has a backlit CMOS sensor and TruePic VI image processor as well as high-speed autofocus and a 10x zoom.

Best of all it comes in a package that fits in your pocket without issue.

Olympus draws on its heritage of creating rugged, durable cameras that take the worry out of life-on-the-go shooting with the new Olympus TG-1 iHS. Marking a revolution for the Tough Series of Waterproof, Shockproof, Freezeproof, Crushproof and Dustproof compact cameras, the Olympus TG-1 iHS combines incredible durability with iHS technology, the world’s first high-speed bright f2.0 lens on a Tough camera and converter-lens compatibility to create a versatile system camera. The combination of durability and outstanding image quality make it possible to shoot in even the harshest conditions. Capture beautiful underwater scenes and aquatic life, snap photos of dusk-lit peaks or record your ride down the rapids in dazzling 1080p Full HD Video.

 

For about five years now, the question for smartphone buyers has been a classic either/or: "Android or iPhone?" Answering that question is more difficult than ever, thanks to large advances in Android, as well as the emergence of a third viable option: Microsoft's beautiful Windows Phone OS.

This week, we'll attempt to break down your three options, looking at each operating system's greatest strengths and weaknesses. Which one you choose should depend largely on how you use your phone.

For the first part of this comparison, let's look at the iPhone and the iOS operating system. The most oft-repeated (and spot-on) description of the iPhone and its operating system is that Apple knows what you want and gives it to you and doesn't let you change it; you can't really alter or customize the experience because -- well, why would you want to?

Frankly, you would want to. There's a lot that's perfect about iOS, but there's also a lot it could learn from Android and Windows Phone. Here's where it sparkles over its competitors and where it could use work:

Strengths

Games And Apps: Apple doesn't just have the most apps in its app store; it also has the best apps. This is especially true for gaming: Gameplay on the iPhone is smoother than on any other smartphone I've tried.

Camera: The camera on the iPhone 4S trumps any other smartphone camera I've tried. The HTC One X comes close, but for high-quality photography day or night, the iPhone 4S is your best bet.

Easy To Use: The iPhone still has a simple interface that makes it a good buy for a first-time smartphone user. I think Windows Phone is a little easier to use -- the larger icons help, especially for older buyers with declining eyesight -- but the iPhone is still idiot-proof, from initial use, to navigating the phone, to the use of each individual app. The always-available Apple support team of Geniuses also helps.

iMessage: The iPhone is the most popular single smartphone in America, and with iMessage, texting any other iPhone is essentially free. Rather than counting against your monthly text message, any message sent over iMessage counts a minimal amount against your data plan.

Device Speed: Forget processors -- the iPhone is still, screen-to-screen, the fastest smartphone experience that is available. Apps and games load quickly and without stutter, and the touchscreen is always responsive to your touch, something that no Android phone can say quite yet. It's a satisfying experience and a big reason why the iPhone maintains its slick appearance.

Weaknesses

Maps/Navigation: We're still waiting on voice navigation -- spoken turn-by-turn directions -- on the Maps app on the iPhone. You can download other apps (for free) with Voice Navigation, but when you click on an address in an email or on a website to get directions, you'll be taken into Apple's Maps, not your GPS app of choice. Frustrating.

Facebook: Uploading photos to Facebook -- and Instagram, Google+, Dropbox and more, but let's focus on the world's largest social network -- is harder than it should be on the iPhone. When you take a photo on Android or Windows Phone, there is an option to upload it to Facebook and even tag your friends straight from the camera. On the iPhone, you have to go into the Facebook app and manually upload it. Apps just don't communicate with each other very well on the iPhone. For example, here is what I can do with a photo on the HTC One X versus what I can do with a photo on the iPhone 4S:

iPhone on the left, Android on the right. The list of apps you can share with grows as you download more applications (like Tumblr, Google+, etc.).

Homescreen: The iPhone's homescreen, and your options for what can be shown on it, is the most rigid and limited of the three major operating systems. When you unlock your iPhone's screen, you're going to be looking at your static rows of icons and nothing else. On Android and Windows Phone, you have the option to have "widgets" or "live tiles," respectively, that can give you a preview of your new mail, the current weather, top headlines, Facebook and Twitter updates, etc, without having to open any individual app.

Mail: Email on the iPhone is disappointing. Email reliably arrives slower on my iPhone than it does on Android devices, and searching through your archives for old messages is harder on the iPhone.

3G: Word is that Verizon salespeople are now pushing prospective iPhone buyers over to 4G Android devices, because the iPhone 4S runs on the slower 3G network rather than the newer, faster 4G network. Some writers are upset about this, but they really shouldn't be: The fact is that, to a consumer who just wants a phone that can make calls, send text messages and surf the Internet, the difference between operating systems matters less than the difference between 3G and 4G speeds. According to a 2012 study from PCWorld, 3G smartphones' (like the iPhone 4S) data speeds were around 1.05 megabytes per second on the download. On Verizon's 4G LTE network, that number rose to 7.35 megabytes per second. It's a speed advantage that is tangible when you are surfing the web or downloading apps on your smartphone.

So Who Should Buy The iPhone?

Buying an iPhone 4S is like walking into a pizza shop and getting a slice of pepperoni pie. It's a safe choice that won't let you down, but if you start to think about it, you might end up wondering what else you might have gotten.

The iPhone 4S is easily the best smartphone option for those who spend a lot of time playing games on their phones or who download a lot of apps to fill out their phone's functions. For those who use their phone as their primary camera, the iPhone 4S is also the best choice. Given how easy it is to use, and Apple's famously accessible "Geniuses" at its retail stores, I would also recommend it for first-time smartphone buyers who don't feel comfortable or confident in their ability to navigate the system. If you anticipate having lots of questions or needing assistance, Apple's help desk is phenomenal.

For those using their smartphone as an email, text message, Internet-browsing-portal, I would hold off on buying the iPhone until it upgrades to 4G LTE (probably in October), especially if you live in a large city, where 4G coverage will arrive first. You just might feel awfully silly with a 3G phone two years from now, considering the booming speeds and multibillion dollar expansion in 4G LTE networks that the four major U.S. carriers are going through right now. If you're committed to iOS and the iPhone, wait five months to get a new phone.

Source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/08/iphone-android-windows-phone_n_1497742.html?ref=technology

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), it has received reports of incidents and injuries involving cell phones batteries and chargers in a variety of environments.

The Commission says that it will continue to do its part by investigating and recalling batteries that present a safety hazard and has appealed the consumers to do their part by following certain basic guidelines. 
 
Following are the simple safety and precautions guidelines:
• Avoid dropping the cell phone often. They can cause a very heavy damage to the battery. If you find fault with the phone after it falls, take them immediately to the dealer and get it fixed.
• Do not take away the battery from the phone and keep them anywhere near any metal objects like keys, coins etc.
• Don’t put the phone or the battery in water. It might dry and work alright, but will have a safety issue sometime later.
• Keep away the phone or the battery from anything hot. It will damage the battery.
• Do not use incompatible batteries. If the battery is not working, buy a new one from the company manufacturer only or contact you dealer or the carrier to help you. Don’t buy it from an unknown dealer, they might sell duplicate or incompatible batteries. 
• Do not apply too much of pressure on the battery. Do not keep very heavy things on it. This might cause internal short circuits and damage the battery in the long run.  
• Strictly follow the guidelines that are given in the User’s guide.
• Never attach or solder anything to the battery. This will affect the very safety of the battery
• Do not crush, dissemble or put the battery into fire. It is very toxic and will affect you.
• Do not overcharge the battery. This might swell the battery and cause rupture.

LG has unveiled their latest Android 4.0 smartphone called LG Optimus LTE2. Equipped with big screen, powered by a Quad Core processor and True HD IPS display, LG Optimus LTE2 is scheduled for released in South Korea sometime mid May at unknown pricing yet.

Other mentioned features including 2GB of RAM, WPC-backed wireless charging and a 2,150mAh Battery that claims to offer 40 percent more battery life than previous generation of Optimus smartphones.

GENERAL	2G Network	CDMA 800 / 1900
	3G Network	HSDPA
	4G Network	LTE
	Announced	2012, May
	Status	Coming soon. Exp. release 2012, May

BODY	Dimensions	-
	Weight	-
		- Touch-sensitive controls

DISPLAY	Type	True HD-IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
	Size	720 x 1280 pixels, 4.5 inches, - (~326 ppi pixel density)
	Multitouch	Yes

SOUND	Alert types	Vibration, MP3, WAV ringtones
	Loudspeaker	Yes
	3.5mm jack	Yes

MEMORY	Card slot	microSD, up to 32 GB
	Internal	2 GB RAM

DATA	GPRS	No
	EDGE	No
	Speed	HSDPA, HSUPA, LTE
	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot
	Bluetooth	Yes, v3.0 with A2DP, EDR
	USB	Yes, microUSB v2.0

CAMERA	Primary	8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
	Features	Geo-tagging, face and smile detection
	Video	Yes, 1080p
	Secondary	Yes

FEATURES	OS	Android OS, v4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
	Sensors	Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
	Messaging	SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS
	Browser	HTML, Adobe Flash
	Radio	TBD
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS support
	Java	Yes, via Java MIDP emulator
	Colors	Black
		- SNS integration - TDMB TV tunner - Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic - Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration - MP4/WMV/H.264/H.263 player - MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ player - Document viewer - Photo viewer/editor - Organizer - Voice memo/dial/commands - Predictive text input (Swype)

BATTERY		Standard battery, Li-Ion 2150 mAh
	Stand-by
	Talk time

LG Optimus LTE2 could be charged wireless on any wireless charging pad manufactured in compliance of wireless charging standard set by Association of Wireless Charging (WPC), without having to buy specific wireless charging pad from a specific manufacturer.