I'm sure like most of you, it took a little bit of time to stop losing those tiny little stylus' and when we first started hearing about phones of the future doing away with them, and all we had to use was out finger (and not worry too much if it's a little oily), we couldn't wait! I don't know how many times I had to go the T-Mobile center to keep replacing them and got to know my salesperson quite well. Several years ago, he told me that Apple was working on something exciting that would do away with that pesky think device.



Now that the stylus is finally heading to the archives, the time couldn't be better to start thinking about getting a touch-screen smartphone. Ever since Steve Jobs and his Apple empire brought the iPhone on the market with his usual tidal wave marketing campaign, the competition has been popping out their own clone iPhone creations all over the place.

Many of the iPhone clones weren't anything more than barely dressed up feature phones. The LG Dare has a sleek and powerful touch option on Verizon, but the downside is a screen with lower resolution than the almighty iPhone. Now the Samsung Instinct is somewhat similar to the LG Dare, but the upside is it's a solid, inexpensive choice for Sprint subscribers. From my perspective, Instinct is a better deal today for two reasons: It now works with the outstanding Opera Mini 4.2 browser, and Sprint added over-the-air calendar sync with Microsoft Outlook and Exchange. I personally have had some issues with Sprint, but now it looks as if they're listening to what their customers want. Hopefully that will last.

Now for someone looking for a phone that can support third-party applications in the native setting, The Dare and the Instinct aren't true smartphones, however. If you want a touch-screen smartphone, though, you still have plenty of options. Now, along with being a true touch screen phone, the T-Mobile G1, the first real Google Android smartphone, boasts a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.



As usual, Blackberry is coming out swinging to stay ahead of the pack with the BlackBerry Storm 9530. This will be the very first touch-screen BlackBerry and puts its own take on the touch interface with its click-enabled LCD. Naturally, other companies are quickly getting onboard the touch screen craze, with touchscreen Windows Mobile handsets like the slider HTC Touch Pro and the iPhone-esque Samsung Omnia. These models both make good use of the notoriously finicky WM interface. Better late than never, Nokia has entered the playing field after years of keyboarded smart devices with the Symbian-based 5800 XPressMusic.

We'll follow up with reviews of these smart phones late this week. I'm still waiting for the last one to come in to review. So we'll be reviewing the new Blackberry Storm 9530, T-Mobile G1, Nokia and Samsung touch screen phones.

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