The iPhone 4 has arrived with all the fanfare of Gollem launching a new model of Precious, but does the Apple attack look likely to thrash the other smart phone big boys once more?

We’ve taken five of the hottest new and upcoming smart phones (and one wild card) and thrown them in the ring for a clash of the titans. Screens will shatter and hearts will be broken as we sort the phones from the fools.

We’ve put the iPhone 4 is up against the Dell Streak, the HTC Desire and the Samsung Galaxy S — and just for kicks, the old iPhone 3GS too. If we haven’t matched up your favourite heavyweights, let us know in the comments, and let battle commence. Fight!

dell streak

The dell streak is part of a huge-phone trend that includes the HTC HD2. The focus is on surfing the Web, rather than making calls, and with the Android OS on board, the Streak is well up to the task.

Big and beautiful

The Streak flaunts a 127mm (5-inch) screen, which backs up its claims to be a tablet computer rather than a phone. But you can still make phone calls on it, and even slip it in your pockets if you wear baggy jeans. Add that to a sleek, good-looking case and you’ve got a great smart phone for people who’d rather chat on Facebook than talk on the phone.

Lagging behind

The Streak runs the older, 1.6 version of Google’s Android operating system, until an update to version 2.2 comes later this year. When it does, the Streak will go from good to great, because right now it’s missing some key features, such as native support for Outlook email.

Read our full Dell Streak review here.

HTC Desire

The HTC Desire has been around for a while compared to the other box-fresh contenders, but time hasn’t dulled this smart phone’s charms — and best of all, a few months on the market tends to bring prices down, making the Desire the most affordable of these phones.

Android with benefits

The Desire runs Android 2.1, covered with HTC’s own special user-interface sauce, which we think adds handy features and makes the robot better looking. It sounds like a perfect world, but the customised version of Android could mean you have to wait longer for updates, as HTC Hero users have discovered — they’re still stuck with Android 1.5, and are starting to miss out on new apps that don’t support older versions.

Blinded by the light

The Desire’s AMOLED screen is stunningly bright and vivid indoors, but outside on a sunny day, it’s so reflective you can hardly see it. Luckily, we don’t get too many sunny days here in Blighty, but if you fancy making a call from the beach, get ready for some touchscreen trial and error.

Read our full HTC Desire review here.

Apple iPhone 4

The iPhone 4 doesn’t launch until 24 June, but that doesn’t stop us craving its curves. The networks are lining up to offer Apple’s latest creation, but despite the competition, this is likely to be the priciest phone in the punnet.

Refresh and renew

Unlike the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4 is a new design compared to its predecessor. An epically high-resolution screen should be just the thing for reading e-books from Apple’s new store and watching video filmed in 720p with the new 5-megapixel camera. A glass front and back looks slick and should be more scratch-resistant than plastic — but the moment before your dropped phone hits the concrete will feel like an eternity of pain.

Blast from the past

We’re excited about the limited multi-tasking and other new features of the iOS 4 operating system, which will be on the iPhone 4 as well as the iPhone 3GS, iPad and third-gen iPod touch. But video calling didn’t tempt us when it came out five years ago, and we’re even more indifferent when we can only do it between iPhone 4s.

Read our full Apple iPhone 4 preview here.

Samsung Galaxy S

The Samsung Galaxy S is slated to be released by the end of the month, but that won’t stop us from speculating about this crave-worthy phone. A huge 102mm (4-inch) touchscreen means the Galaxy S is another option for those of us with clown pockets or roomy handbags.

Super duper AMOLED

The Samsung Galaxy S is yet another phone in our battle that’s running Google’s Android OS, but it’s the only one with a Super AMOLED screen. It’s far less reflective than the AMOLED type, so unlike the HTC Desire, we should be able to see the Galaxy S when we’re strolling in the sunshine.

Android anticipation

Samsung has been slowly warming up to the Android OS with two other Galaxy phones — the Galaxy Portal and the Galaxy i7500. Both were solid efforts, but we’re still waiting for Samsung to blow us away with something special, and with a 1GHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera and HD video, the Galaxy S has real blowage potential.

Read more about the Samsung Galaxy S here.

Apple iPhone 3GS

The iPhone 3GS may be old news with the launch of the iPhone 4, but it’s still a great smart phone — especially now the price is certain to drop.

Still getting better

The iPhone 3GS will receive the iOS 4 software upgrade, which means many of the features of the iPhone 4 will go to 3GS users too. Basic multi-tasking, wallpaper and room for more organised apps are all in the cards for the update. That’s on top of a phone that’s so powerful and fun to use, it’s been sitting on top of our mobile phone reviews table since the day it came out.

The cool factor

The iPhone still won’t be cheap, and buying an older version of a top of the line gadget just feels wrong. If you want to blow your bonus on the latest thing, you can go the whole hog with the iPhone 4 — otherwise, an HTC Desire will save you a good deal of money on your contract and pricy iPhone apps. On the other hand, if you can get over your gadget envy for the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS remains a phone that’s well worth having.

Read our full Apple iPhone 3GS review here.

The report of IDC says that the converged mobile device market has seen a growth of about 30 percent in 2009. The report also mentions that this growth momentum will continue even this year.

Paul Jacobs, the CEO of Qualcomm, believes that the market for smartphones will split into high-end segment and low-end segment. He says that this is a trend that is speedly eroding the feature phones market.
The Yankee Group’s survey of 2009 had found about 43 percent of consumers of US plans to take smartphones their next mobile device.

Well, one question arises. Is is that all these reports is a gesture to smartphone market for new vendors?

If you look at the recent news of Palm and Garmin, it indicates that the market of smartphones is in fact not profit panacea that one would expect. According to Palm, the manufacturers is now expecting a full-year revenue going below what it had estimated earlier of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion. The reports of Garmin is also similar. The company is till date “disappointed” with its nuvifone products sale. These can also give a jerk to new players in the market such as Dell, LG, Acer and other.

Ramon Llamas, analyst of IDC’s smartphone, said: “Instead of, ‘If you build it, they will come,’ it’s turned into, ‘If you build it, will they come?”

Lamas further mentioned that the two, Garmin and Palm, faced unique challenges. So far the marketing effort of Palm targeted the “Valentine’s Day” potential customers and not the traditional smartphone early adopters. He explained that Garmin suffered promotional scarcity and its ecosystem too much relied on interest in mapping and directions.

John Jackson, the CCS Insight analyst, said: “We knew that Palm would launch the Pre into the teeth of new flagship products (or revs of products in Apple’s case) from Apple, RIM, HTC and others.”

Jackson added further, “The same is true for Garmin, compounded by the issue of Google (and now Nokia) basically undermining the navigation proposition with freeware. Without a portfolio, a limited number of stock-keeping units (one in Garmin’s case and basically two in Palm’s case) are that much more likely to get lost in the mix. Apple is the exception, but that success story is well known at this point.”

What is OPhone OS?

The OPhone OS files as a carrier-made Mobile operating system. This technology helps in integrating several carrier-specific features such as it will be supporting the mobile TV broadcasting services of China Mobile and the MMS service out-of-the-box. Apart from this, the OPhone OS mobile device is offered at an aggressive price point. Moreover, the OPhone OS will be breaking the old rules of handsets by bundling the device and the SIM card together.

Over 20 mobile manufacturers have been persuaded by China Mobile till now to create such handsets that run OPhone OS. Apart from Dell, the other manufacturers in the list are Lenovo Group, Huawei Technologies and TCL.

Dell has already started to engineer the OPhone OS devices. It in fact was aiming the US market. HTC and LG Electronics are also developing the OPhone OS-powered phones. However, one thing to remember here is that the Chinese market is already crowded when we talk about mobile. Let us wait and see whether the OPhone OS is able to make any impact in Chinese market with another mobile operating system.