Smartphones

Samsung's Galaxy Note defies easy categorisation and really begs the question: just how big is too big? This Android 2.3-powered device packs a 5.3in screen, but it’s a little too large to really be called a phone and a little too small to be called a tablet. Samsung itself describes it using the slightly cringeworthy moniker of ‘phablet’. It’s not all bad, however, and in both design and use the Note actually fills its unusual niche quite effectively.

HTC's Sensation XE is an upgrade to the original dual-core Sensation that was originally a Telstra exclusive. In the case of the Beats-branded XE, it’s switched camps to Vodafone, bumped up the processor to a dual-core 1.5GHz and marginally increased the battery capacity to 1,730mAh. The Beats branding extends to including a set of Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, as with the larger Sensation XL, but in the XE’s case it’s a smaller set of Ur-Beats buds.

The waves of Android smartphones hitting the market continue unabated, and here we three new models for a variety of needs: the HTC Sensation XL with its 4.7in screen and high-class headphones, Sony Ericsson's 4.2in Xperia Arc S with its 3D camera, and the latest version of Motorola's robust 3.7in phone, the Defy+.

Sony Ericsson's Xperia Arc S is an upgrade to the original Xperia Arc and that’s not a terribly old phone, all things considered. This hasn’t given Sony Ericsson that much time to alter the Xperia Arc formula. What you get with the Xperia Arc S is a slight processor bump (from 1GHz to 1.4GHz), slight battery bump and the inclusion of a 3D panorama shooting mode. It’s still got the same pleasant-to-hold curved shape of the original Xperia Arc and this is still its best feature.

The original Motorola Defy’s selling proposition was that it was a water-resistant, dust-proof and scratch-resistant Android phone. It initially had Telstra’s Blue Tick approval (meaning it should work well in regional Australia), but that was revoked later in its service life. The new Defy+ gets the Blue Tick back, as well as slightly upgraded innards, including a 1GHz processor and Android 2.3.

HTC's Sensation XL is one of two ‘Beats by Dr Dre’ smartphones that Vodafone’s snapped up as an exclusive and in the case of the XL, it’s named as such because it’s a large phone, with its 4.7in display and a pair of very large Beats headphones bundled in. The latter are exceptionally good for a smartphone, if a little bass-heavy.

Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus is hands down the best Android phone we’ve used, though only some of that comes down to the phone itself. In what’s shaping up to be a yearly refresh for Google, this third Nexus-branded handset packs the new Android 4.0 operating system (aka Ice Cream Sandwich) in its untouched form; as before, this is semi-officially Google’s flagship phone, so it should be the first to get any future Android OS updates.

The first new Motorola RAZR phone in several years isn’t a flip phone, but is a large and very thin smartphone. At 7.1mm thick at its narrowest point, it’s the current market leader for thin phones, although this doesn’t run the entire length of the phone — there’s a distinct bump at the top that houses the 8-megapixel camera and headphone, micro-HDMI and micro-USB connectors. It makes it a little easier to hold up to your ear, but that’s got to be weighed against the large size of this particular handset.

The HTC Salsa is an Android 2.3 Gingerbread phone with HTC’s updated Sense UI. Among the more interesting features of this version of Sense is the ability to drag and launch specific applications directly from the phone lock screen. The Salsa, like HTC's ChaCha, is a Vodafone exclusive that trades significantly on the inclusion of an F button for direct Facebook access contextually linked to your current activity.

For better or worse, the new iPhone 4S looks much like the iPhone 4, although it’s a different model to the iPhone 4 that was sold in Australia. The 4S design is based off the CDMA Verizon iPhone 4, which means if you’re upgrading from an iPhone 4, your case may have trouble fitting, due to the offset for the mute switch being different. Internally, a lot’s different, however: it’s adopted the A5 processor first shown in the iPad 2 and the effect is remarkable — this is a speedy smartphone that powers through most basic tasks with aplomb.