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T-mobile G1

Mobiles are to men what handbags are to women. The iPhone is Marc Jacobs (cool, ubiquitous), Nokia is Mulberry (the non-statement statement), Motorola is Chloé (bit tacky), Sony Ericsson is Tumi (bland) and BlackBerry is Gucci (a hit with bankers and teens alike). Don’t bother with any of the other brands. So, where does Google’s first phone, the G1 for T-Mobile, fit in? Style-wise, it’s a bit of a dud, but don’t let that put you off. Men will endure no end of heavy boxiness if the technology is right. Only the iPhone can rival it for its features: internet, touchscreen, e-mail, satnav, as well as an actual phone. Unlike the key-less iPhone, the G1 slides open to reveal a full keyboard, which takes it up a notch. Excellent for fat-thumbed CEOs. In fact, with its dull looks and flashy hard drive, the G1 has ageing businessman written all over it. Or, in fashion speak: Armani.

Giles Hattersley

Samsung Omnia

Samsung’s answer to the iPhone has oodles of functions and is geared to harmonise with your life, thus improving the quality of it. Apparently. Sadly, I couldn’t get beyond setup. And while a touchscreen is a great idea and would spell the end of texter’s thumb, I couldn’t spell anything. The keyboard is tiny and turned even delicate fingers into useless sausages. The camera is excellent quality, with a high-resolution feel, but this didn’t compensate for the fact that I couldn’t work out how to set up my e-mail. I spent three days in Switzerland, where I was meant to be relaxing, hunched over the thing, “grrrr”-ing at it. Setting up the BlackBerry e-mail account, however, is as easy as breathing. Design-wise, it looks a lot like, well, a phone, so my proclivities for style over content weren’t piqued either. I like my technology like my men: good-looking and easy to use. The Omnia was everything but.

Kate Spicer

Blackberry storm

Only a couple of weeks ago, the first models of this phone were rolling off the production lines in BlackBerry’s Canadian HQ, so a select few reviewers were flown out for an exclusive preview. Very 007. Appropriately, the invitation came through on my BlackBerry, an earlier version called the Bold. Does the new model compare? And how. The screen on the Storm is much larger, making every program inviting. Video playback is tremendous. Unlike other touchscreens, this one clicks when you press firmly to confirm what you’re doing. Reassuring. The phone is a good size: narrower than Apple’s iPhone, if a little chunkier. Like the Bold, it’s great for surfing the internet and has neat nonbusiness applications, too. For example, snaps taken on the built-in camera can be uploaded onto Facebook in seconds. But everything has been persuasively, and successfully, redesigned for fingertip operation. If there is a flaw, it’s that there’s no WiFi, which the iPhone and Google phone have. That apart, a handset worth travelling to the ends of the earth (or at least Toronto) for.

David Phelan

Apple iPhone

There are a few iPhone lookalikes now on the market with even snazzier features, but none confers such a well- rounded bundle of technological delights that is also nigh-on idiot-proof. Hankering for a clever-clogs smartphone? Apple’s wunderkind is still the one with the magic. Okay, the Storm is a safer harbour for e-mail fiends and the G1 Google phone will enthral the most obsessional geek, but only an iPhone ignites pure techno-lust. Its sultry combination of posh features that yield themselves up to simple finger swipes remains a modern miracle, and the pose factor is still off the scale. Like any smitten fool, I can even forgive its foibles — rubbish camera, no picture-messaging and, bizarrely, no way to cut and paste text. I don’t even care about the hit-and-miss “virtual” keyboard. If your pockets are deep enough to afford (and then house) a plush touchscreen phone, this is the one, baby. Yeah.

Alex Pell

Nokia E71

Getting a new phone is like getting a voracious Ukrainian mistress — it looks brilliant and you want to stroke it all the time, but it's very high-maintenance. Before I got my hands on the Nokia, I never wanted to read my e-mails in an airport or know what the BBC had as its lead story while sitting in a cafe. But now that I can, I do. The problem was that it took two days, four men and my nanny (not mine obviously, the children’s) actually to get this thing talking to my interweb, computer, telephone-exchange card, and so on. Which was taxing, to say the least. Something I thought was very funny and quite amazing, though, is that it comes with a clone of itself. Essentially, it’s two identical, twin phones. One for business, one for pleasure, as they say. But as we all know, anybody caught having an affair is discovered when their partner reads their texts and e-mails. So, with this, you can have one phone for your regular life and one for your Ukrainian mistress — which seems to me to be a very sophisticated use for new technology.

A A Gill

Plus, do new to-the-market E-book live up to the hype?

You might be dubious about the notion of the e-book. How could a machine replicate the look and feel of a well-thumbed and beloved novel? Yet there is something uber-cool about the Sony Reader. People approach me on the bus to talk about it. It carries 160 books in a widget the width of Michelle Pfeiffer’s septum. It’s moron-easy to upload and the page-like screen is undemanding on the eye. You can bookmark many pages at once and dip in and out of multiple books seamlessly. Add an indefatigable battery and the way it compels you to keep reading and you have a near-perfect present for the bookish one in your life. The BeBook is almost identical, although it can store 1,000 books. Functionality is exactly the same, and actually it feels marginally snappier. All the news on the net is of the Amazon Kindle, meanwhile, which has had its release date put back until the new year. We’re not missing much, though, as according to those who’ve tried it, it’s the least slick of the lot.

Anna-Jean Hughes