Review By: Dharemsh Patel.

Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- After only eight months on the market, the iPhone from Apple Inc. is prompting competitors including market leader Nokia Oyj to introduce mobile phones with competitive, and sometimes better, features.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Nokia, based in Espoo, Finland, unveiled the N96, a top-of-the-line model that comes with features the iPhone lacks, including faster third-generation mobile data connections, video recording, a slot for additional memory and the ability to watch live TV in parts of Europe and Asia.

The phone also connects to global positioning systems for real-time navigation and incorporates a 5-megapixel camera. The iPhone doesn't have GPS and has a 2-megapixel camera.
As an upgrade to the N95, the N96 looks promising. The company doubled the built-in memory to 16 gigabytes, enough to store hundreds of music tracks, photos or a combination of multimedia files. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, recently launched a 16 gigabyte version of the iPhone for $499, or $100 more than the 8 gigabyte version.

The N96 has a 2.8-inch LCD screen and a dual-sliding design that reveals the keypad in one direction and the music controls in the other. Unlike the iPhone, the N96 isn't touch-based, so has more buttons, a feature that some people prefer. It's too early to tell whether the handset's integration with Nokia's Ovi Web services, such as media sharing and music, will be intuitive and fun to use.
The N96 will be available in the third quarter for an estimated price of 550 euros ($800) without carrier subsidy. European phone companies often subsidize hundreds of euros of a handset's cost, depending on the market and customer's price plan. Nokia hasn't announced pricing for the U.S. market.

New Operating System
Chipmakers including ARM Holdings Plc, headquartered in Cambridge, England; Qualcomm Inc., based in San Diego; and Texas Instruments Inc., based in Dallas, showed off their prototypes running on Google Inc.'s Android mobile operating system. This is a free, open platform created by Mountain View, California- based Google and more than 30 partners, who have formed a group called the Open Handset Alliance.
Based on prototypes shown in Barcelona this week, I can see Android competing with the iPhone's user interface and ease of use once phone makers and carriers decide to adopt it.
ARM's demo unit showed a QWERTY keyboard and bears closer resemblance to a BlackBerry than the devices shown by Texas Instruments and Qualcomm. All three run Google applications such as Gmail, Google Maps and a mobile browser. The browser is the most interesting, capable of delivering complete Web pages similar to those on the iPhone.
Killer App
No doubt, Web browsing is a killer app on mobile phones. But what if you don't have an iPhone and want to see Web sites in full glory, not just text?
Opera Software ASA, based in Oslo, showed a test version of its Opera Mobile 9.5 browser that lets you view, zoom and pan across Web pages, complete with photos, animations and so on. It works on handsets running on the Windows Mobile operating system such as those made by Motorola Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. The Web surfing experience was speedy and pages looked similar to what you typically see on a PC's browser.

While the iPhone has driven companies to innovate, no handset yet trumps its style, simplicity and integration of applications. The latest handsets are minor upgrades of existing phones, with a few interesting add-ons. Vendors need to do more.

The iPhone will get even more interesting when Apple opens its mobile operating system to third-party developers this year, and introduces a 3G version.

For more information: http://www.nokia.com/nseries http://www.openhandsetalliance.com http://www.opera.com http://www.apple.com
(Grace Aquino is a columnist for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Dharmesh Patel at d420773@yahoo.co.in