2. Pick Your System

HTC's Star Trek flip phone model.

Smartphones come in three basic styles: candybar phones, clamshells that flip open or slider phones where the keypad slides out from under the screen when you need it. Additionally, Nokia and LG have some models where the screen or keypad swivels to the side for photography. RIM only offers the candybar-style BlackBerry Pearl but the other common smartphone operating systems are available on phones that come in a wide range of styles. Of course, non-smartphones can also be had in these basic styles.

Rule number 4 of 4: A phone's outer shell style is no indicator of its status as a smartphone.

Unless you're a fan of a particular manufacturer, choosing the operating system you want on your phone is the first decision to make, because that dictates the user interface and the applications you can install. Although different networks include their own themes on Windows Mobile smartphones, the interface is otherwise the same on all models. The majority of these are from HTC, although you'll see them branded by various carriers and sold under the i-mate and Qtek brands too. There are several different versions of the Symbian operating system that Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG and some other manufactures use, all with different interfaces.

Many Windows Mobile smartphones are branded directly by the carrier.

HTC has begun selling Windows Mobile phones under its own name.

Nokia uses Symbian in many phones, with a variety of user interfaces on top.

All smartphones have email software that supports POP3 and IMAP. Windows Mobile smartphones can also synchronize with Hotmail or an Exchange server (which synchronizes your calendar, tasks and contacts too). A number of Symbian phones come with BlackBerry Connect software, which gives you BlackBerry push email; Good (recently bought by Motorola) and VISTO push email software is also available for Symbian and Windows Mobile smartphones.

Despite the slim and sleek design, you'll pick a BlackBerry Pearl primarily for its email features; by stripping out most HTML, BlackBerry gives you fast downloads and true push email. There are fewer applications for BlackBerry but that means hundreds of titles rather than the thousands available for Windows Mobile and Symbian smartphones. Pocket PC applications don't run on Windows Mobile, but it's not a lot of work for developers to port them. And there are far fewer applications available for Motorola phones like the RAZR.

Motorola's RAZR and related smartphones also have a harder-to-user interface, a less impressive browser and fewer applications available for download than other platforms.

RIM has its own browser, which supports some JavaScript. Windows Mobile smartphones come with Internet Explorer Mobile, but you can also install a version of Opera, which is also available for UIQ and Series 60 Symbian phones. Both browsers can resize pages to fit on the smaller screen of a smartphone. Nokia has a browser based on components from Safari and Konqueror.

Mobile Web browsing still isn't the full desktop experience but the Opera Mini is available for many smartphones.