Blog: 8 Mobile Handsets That Beat Apple's iPhoneBlog: 8 Mobile Handsets That Beat Apple's iPhone

Eten Glofiish X500

The Glofiish X500, made by Eten Communications of Taiwan, sounds like it was named after a James Bond villain.

Its most notable characteristic, and the reason it's on the list, is it's billed by Eten as the "World's thinnest Pocket PC Phone." It's equipped with both Wi-Fi and GPS (the iPhone has the former, but not the latter. Few phones available in the United States do.)

As for its sleek, block-like look, I can't decide whether it's truly stylish, or whether it's got that almost-but-not-quite-right look common to high-end Chinese cars. Still, it's definitely got an honest enough feature set to make my "better than iPhone" list.

Nokia 6120 Classic

Want the smallest and lightest smartphone in the world? Want one that can store 35-Mbytes (expandable to 2-Gbytes) worth of MP3 files? Then you want the Nokia 6120 Classic. (Also, here.) It's got high-speed Web browsing, the aforementioned multimedia capability, and weighs 89 g (that's 3.1 oz., where I come from). It'll set you back about $280.

Samsung BlackJack, BlackBerry Curve, Nokia E61

I won't bore you by recounting at length the virtues of three well-known smartphones you can buy anywhere. My colleague Elena Malykhina covered them admirably in her June story, Nine Alternatives To The iPhone.

Of the nine phones in her story, my clear picks for my "better than iPhone" list are the Samsung BlackJack, BlackBerry Curve, and Nokia E61. Personally, I'm a huge BlackBerry fan. I think they combine the best of business and personal into a single model you can happily use on a daily basis. My only quibble is that I wish corporate models like the 8700c came with a built-in MP3 player.

Google Phone

I can't show you a picture yet of the No. 1 smartphone on my list that's not an iPhone, because it's still in development. Reportedly, Google has shown a prototype of the phone to select vendors.

But we'll see it soon, and then Apple will finally have some competition in the buzz department, to match all the already better technical competition I've outlined above.

Here's one interesting angle to consider: The Google phone might not be a feature-laden behemoth like many of the smartphones I've talked about above. Perhaps it'll be simple. Talking and surfing, without a surfeit of features which drag battery life down. [Maybe something like the Grundig G550i, below. This is not a perfect example because it doesn't have a browser, but it's the closest I could find to the phone I wanted to hold up as a possible Google model. That would be the Grundig Dreamphone, a very interesting but failed Linux design from several years back.]

How can I speculate that the Google Phone will be better than the iPhone? I look at it this way: Both Apple and Google are arrogant, but their respective conceits are different. Apple's is rather cult-like, where all reverence basically extends upward toward the exalted figure of Steve Jobs.

Google, on the other hand, is still young enough that its "we're better" corporate story is focused on its products. Which are damn good. Google search on your phone? Yeah, yeah, I know you can search Google on your iPhone. Tell me that search isn't going to be a better experience on a Google phone. Then tell me the Google Phone isn't going to give the iPhone a run for its money. Even the Apple faithful, in their heart of hearts, know that's true.