Mobile Phones UK: Reviews & Best Buys

HTC Desire
The HTC Desire is one of the most impressive phones of all time. Despite being significantly cheaper than the iPhone, it can match or beat everything that the iPhone does. An Android smartphone with a fabulously responsive touchscreen, the Desire packs in a huge choice of apps, brilliant web browsing, one of the biggest and best screens ever, a good camera, a music player and GPS too. You want more? Add in a superfast processor, monster battery, WiFi and a 3.5mm headphone jack and you've got the perfect phone.

Best buy: *Free* with half-price line rental from Mobiles.co.uk.

Samsung Galaxy S
The Samsung Galaxy S is quite possibly the best phone on the market today. It runs the latest version of the Android operating system and has a host of world-beating features including a 4" Super AMOLED screen, HD video recording and playback, a superfast 1GHz processor, surround sound, GPS with Google Maps, a monster 8GB or 16GB of memory and good battery life..

Best buy: *Free* with half-price line rental from Mobiles.co.uk or direct from Three.

Samsung Tocco Lite
The Tocco Lite is Samsung's answer to the LG Cookie. Available in black or pink it's a bargain touchscreen phone. Although it lacks 3G, it offers a fabulous fun user interface with easy access to Facebook and YouTube, plus all the features that you'd expect: a 3.2 megapixel camera, video recording, music player, FM radio with RDS, memory card slot and Bluetooth. Available free on contract with a choice of free gifts: from free line rental to a free laptop or XBOX 360.

Best buy: *Free* with £230 auto cashback or a free XBOX 360 Elite from Mobiles.co.uk (Black) or Mobiles.co.uk (Pink) or Dialaphone (Black); or £49.90 on PAYG from Mobiles.co.uk (Black or Pink) or £59.95 from the Carphone Warehouse (Black or Pink).

Nokia 5230
The 5230 is an entry-level touchscreen smartphone. Its key features are its large touchscreen, A-GPS with Ovi Maps, 3G, downloadable apps from the Ovi store and outstanding battery life. In other ways it's a disappointment, with a poor camera, a mono speaker, no WiFi and no video calling.

Best buy: *Free* with free line rental from Dialaphone (Black) or Dialaphone (White) or free from Three (Black or White); or £77.95 on PAYG from the Carphone Warehouse (Black or Pink) or £78.95 from Dialaphone (White or V-Festival Red).

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
The Sony Ericsson X10 is a superphone! It's a touchscreen smartphone running Google's Android operating system and layered with Sony Ericsson's unique user interface specially designed for the phone. It's supremely powerful, but very easy to use too. Tech specs include an absolutely enormous 4 inch screen, an 8.1 megapixel camera, GPS, HSPA, 1GB memory plus an 8GB memory card, and a monster battery.

Best buy: *Free* with free line rental from Mobiles.co.uk (Black).

LG Cookie
The LG KP500 is a touchscreen phone for those on a budget. It's a compact device but with a large touchscreen display that's easy and fun to use. With a 3.2 megapixel camera, a media player, an FM radio, Bluetooth wireless connectivity and a memory card slot, this phone has all the essentials. Although it misses out on 3G and a top class camera, it has most features that most people will want, and for the money you'd be hard pressed to find anything better than this!

Best buy: £49.90 on PAYG from Mobiles.co.uk (Black or Pink) or £49.95 from the Carphone Warehouse (Black or Pink).

Apple iPhone 4
The iPhone 4 is a flawed beauty. The main improvements are the extra high resolution display, the improved 5 megapixel camera, HD video recording, a second camera for video calls and longer battery life. But there are problems getting a signal and it's phenomenally expensive too.

Best buy: *Free* on contract from Vodafone (16GB Black) or £59 on contract from Vodafone (32GB Black).

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
Nokia's first touchscreen phone is impressively good. It may not have quite the polished feel of the iPhone, but with so many good features, it's in many ways better than the iPhone. Headline features include the very high resolution touchscreen with 16 million colours, the 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, 3G video calling, an excellent web browser with support for Flash, the music player & FM radio, GPS positioning with Nokia Maps, WiFi, Bluetooth and an 8GB memory card. Available in black, red or blue.

Best buy: *Free* from Dialaphone (Black) or BuyMobilePhones.net (Red); or £199.95 on PAYG from the Carphone Warehouse (Red).