iPhone Loses Credits?

The cell phone market is hung up on high-end technologies. The leading companies engage in competition with the final aim to create unique products with various functions.

Modern cell phones support lots of functions and features, but real life shows that most of people use their cell phones mainly for making calls and sending SMS and rarely MMS (message services). The fact is that most of the offered functions and services are quite expensive. This includes browsing the Web, downloading ringtones, uploading pictures, adding third-party applications or getting media. Besides, high-end cell phones are not quite easy to operate and are less financially attractive.

This doesn't actually mean that manufacturers should stop developing new models. Still, there are those who are highly interested in 'what's new on the cell phone market'. But, in the long run, 'horse race' manufacturers forget about what a cell phone is valued for. Most of the social surveys show that a cell phone is appreciated mainly for:

• concordance of price and functions;


• battery life;


• additional functions.

This article is targeted at those willing to get into the subject of high-end cell phone. So, let's see what we have on the market and enter the competition!

The Great Competition

It is not for the first time when gadgets' market is an issue of fierce competition. Actually it is about the struggle for a certain market share between Apple and other manufacturers.

It's been a while since Apple has surprised users with its iPods series. In fact, it is a leading seller of the portable media players. The story promises to repeat itself this summer, with the launch of iPhone. Still there are those who barely believe it!

At the 3GSM show in Barcelona (12-15 February 2007), main competitors of Apple (HP, Samsung, LG and Neonode) tried to hurt iPhone success by launching similar products (the LG's Prada phone was launched in February). These models promise to do more than iPhone for less money.

Question: Hype or Bare Truth?

Obviously Apple's rivals should be much better than iPhone to target Apple's market share. Even if any of the competitors is able to somehow exceed iPhone, it will still go after a different market since Apple is all about lifestyle for lots of people. ("Give to Apple what's Apple's!")

HP. HP designed a cell phone model for corporate usage. It features centralized management and security. This phone uses voice command and allows vocal reading of e-mail and voice responses to messages (Voice over Internet Protocol). It is smaller and weights less than Palm and RIM phones.

It is worth mentioning that this is the first series of HP smartphones. The company promises that its next generation's phones will be quite distinctive, mainly by their design.

Samsung. The announced Samsung Ultra F700 features a 5 megapixel camera and a keyboard for data entry. This 3G phone supports HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) with a very fast 7.2 Mbps data rate. Samsung Ultra F700 size is similar to iPhone. Samsung's Ultra F700 does not support Windows file formats. Instead it supports Real MP3 and a broad spectrum of non-aligned media types.

Neonode. The Neonode phone exceeds both of the above and promises to be the top media phone. It is expected to cost more than iPhone and to justify its cost with truly unique functions.

The unique screen is equipped with a light mesh for movement detection. This makes it more sensitive than iPhone's touch screen.

PC music utility will work like a TiVo, automatically downloading content from free music Web sites. Thus, the user won't pay for each song.

The Neonode phone will run Windows CE platform distinguished by its simplified interface. The phone has an increased battery life. It assures 16 hours of movie-viewing per a charge; plus it comes with a removable battery to add power if needed.

Compared to iPhone, Nonode's phone has the same camera and data rate, still it quits when it is about talk time (4 h vs. iPhone's 5h).

Final Word

The weak spots of iPhone are its price, battery life, storage capacity, connection speed, data entry, camera quality and no third-party applications. This is particularly because there are cell phones that exceed iPhone in a number of key factors. The strong points of the above models are storage capacity (some are equipped with memory slots, adding a capacity from 8 GB to 32 GB) and battery life (some of the phones contain replaceable batteries).

Still, iPhone won't lose this battle, as the second Apple's nano phone is expected this year. Besides, manufacturers should firstly convince IT that they are really good. This actually isn't an easy job, because IT currently has little to do with phones outside of RIM's or Good Technology's smartphones.

The iPhone already won the credits of millions of people. It is hard to imagine someone to come up with a phone that can beat iPhone by design, image or stronger marketing campaign.