2009 in review: The year in smartphones

2009: The year of the smartphone

A look back over the mobile announcements of last year shows that 2009 can justifiably be labelled 'the year of the smartphone', as a staggering number of new handsets either came to market, or have at least been unveiled during the past 12 months.

And the excitement was not limited solely to devices, as 2009 also saw the emergence of several new platforms aiming to grab a slice of market share from the established players such as Symbian, Windows Mobile and RIM's BlackBerry OS.

While Google's Android platform appeared in 2008, the number of handsets using it turned from a trickle into a flood last year, while Palm staged a comeback with its all-new WebOS.

Thanks to Apple's iPhone, gesture-driven touch-screens became almost a standard feature of smartphones this year, joining HSDPA, Wi-Fi and GPS, while screens themselves became bigger and boasted higher resolutions.

Another major development was the app store. Envious of Apple's success with its online presence for downloading software direct to its iPhone, various vendors and operators almost fell over themselves to introduce their own versions, often backed by initiatives and incentives designed to attract developer support.

Here we have rounded up a choice selection of reviews from 2009, along with a brief look ahead to 2010.

Palm Pre
Palm kicked off 2009 by announcing its Pre smartphone at CES in Las Vegas in January, although the handset itself was not available until June in the US, and October in the UK.

The Pre introduced Palm's WebOS, a new platform centred on the web and the user's personal data, and was widely tipped as a serious rival for Apple's iPhone. Like that device, the Pre has a high resolution touch-screen, but also has a slide-out Qwerty keyboard that makes messaging easier than on its rival.

Our review of the Pre was favourable, but whether Palm can attract enough developers to its platform in the long term remains to be seen.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
January also saw Nokia's first touch-screen phone, the 5800, hit the UK market. This handset was touted as the phone giant's answer to Apple's iPhone, a phrase that has since become tiresome through being applied to almost every new touch-screen device.

The device, which offered owners a year's unlimited downloads from Nokia's music store, saw early success with brisk UK sales following its availability, although the US version ran into some technical glitches. Our reviewer concluded that the device was a good choice for buyers used to Nokia's S60 user interface.

HTC Magic
Unveiled in February at the Mobile World Congress show, the HTC Magic was the second handset to ship with Google's Android platform, following the T-Mobile G1 in late 2008.

The Magic is slimmer and lighter than its predecessor, but lacks a keyboard and so relies mostly on its touch-screen for input. However, the Android platform with its easy access to Google services such as Google Mail, and easy customisation, went down well with our reviewer.

Nokia E75
Nokia's E75, which launched in May, was the first device from the company to feature a slide-out Qwerty keyboard. It also introduced a new email user interface, and was aimed at business professionals, coming with the Quickoffice application suite and able to link with Microsoft Exchange mail servers.

Apple iPhone 3GS
Apple's popular iPhone has had a huge impact on the smartphone market since the original model launched, causing multi-touch screens and more intuitive user interfaces to become standard features.

The arrival of the iPhone 3GS in June ushered in an updated operating system with improved performance, support for faster 3G network downloads and a boost in built-in storage to 16GB or 32GB.

However, despite these improvements, our conclusion was that the new iPhone was somewhat pricey, and that consumers might want to look around at alternatives before shelling out for one.

Nokia N97
June saw the arrival of another Nokia handset with a slide-out Qwerty keyboard. A petite and consumer-focused device, the N97 was Nokia's first model to come with built-in access to the full range of the firm's Ovi online services

Although the N97 came with a decent 32GB of storage for music and photos, our reviewer found the handset's keyboard poor, and a resistive rather than capacitive screen made touch input less satisfactory.

HTC Hero
Joining June's round of smartphone launches was a new Android-based handset from HTC, the Hero, which debuted HTC's Sense user interface on top of the Android desktop.

Unfortunately, this made the phone seem a little sluggish, although our review found that the ease of use and flexibility of the Android platform shone through.

BlackBerry Storm2
October saw the announcement of two new BlackBerry smartphones, the first one out of the bag being the Storm2, an updated version of last year's Storm - the first touch-screen BlackBerry.

The new handset essentially corrects the faults of the earlier model, adding an overhauled feedback mechanism - which simulates the feel of pressing a key on the screen - to make it more robust, and adding a Wi-Fi interface.

BlackBerry Bold 9700
Also known as the Bold 2, this handset is essentially a revised version of last year's original Bold, introducing a slightly smaller design with a trackpad rather than a pearl trackball.

The new trackball of the Bold 9700 allows users to quickly scroll through email, and supports some gesture inputs, but some users might be put off by the slightly reduced size of the keyboard on this new device.

Motorola Dext
Motorola's first Android phone is known as the Cliq in the US, but was announced as the Dext when Orange brought it to the UK in October.

The handset has a slide-out Qwerty keyboard in addition to its touch screen, but the most notable feature is its focus on social networking, linking with services such as Twitter and Facebook, for example.

HTC HD2
November saw the availability of HTC's HD2, the first Windows phone to feature a capacitive touch screen and equipped with Microsoft's new Windows Mobile 6.5 running on a large 4.3in display.

Our review found that this screen size made the HD2 easier to us than many rival touch phones, although it makes the handset a bit of a squeeze for anything but the largest of pockets. It also carries a rather steep price tag if bought SIM-free.

T-Mobile Pulse
T-Mobile unveiled the Pulse in September as the first Android-based handset to be available on a pay-as-you-go tariff, making it suitable for consumers who want to keep in touch via social networks.

Our review found the touch-screen of the Pulse less responsive than some other devices, while the lack of a physical keyboard hampers messaging, but otherwise it was a decent entry-level Android phone.

Coming in 2010...
This year promises to be even more interesting than last, to judge by the handsets that have been already announced.

Due to be available in the first quarter of 2010, the First Else from Emblaze Mobile is styled as a "mobile device" rather than a smartphone, and boasts an unusual interface claimed to make it as easy as possible to use. With innovative features such as built-in noise cancellation and an audio log of all calls, the First Else looks like one handset worth keeping an eye out for.

Samsung's first handset based on its own Bada platform is also due sometime in the first half of 2010. This is expected to focus on games and entertainment, and the company has already launched its own online app store and is making a push for developers to create software for the platform.

Meanwhile, Dell's first smartphone, the much-rumoured Mini 3, looks set to launch soon, although it will be in territories such as China and Brazil to start off with. The 3.5in touch-screen device is expected to be based on Google's Android.

Finally, Google itself is reported to be preparing its own handset called Nexus One. Based on Android (of course), this will be sold by Google directly to consumers rather than through a carrier, according to various sources.