Top iPhone Killers: The List Continues (Part III)

Why "i-Killers"? The reason I use that name isn’t merely because it’s shorter; after all, without the ‘i’ the iPhone would be just another phone, right? But these i-killers seem to be dropping from trees even as the 3G iPhone looks set to launch soon. In Part I and Part II we saw some contenders that are either already available to consumers, making their way to the shelves, or still in a drawing board somewhere. Here are a few more to add to the list.

Nokia Tube
Nokia has thrown its hat into the ring and is developing its own i-Killer, called the Nokia Tube. This is Nokia’s latest shy at a touchscreen job, after attempts like the Nokia 7700. This candy bar handset will run Symbian S60, so it’ll be familiar to Nokia users, but a on a larger scale. For connectivity this quad-band phone will support 3G with HSDPA, GPRS/UMTS, and Wi-Fi. Bluetooth will be present, with an A2DP profile.

The Tube would have GPS and a-GPS capabilities and with the help of its camera (resolution not announced yet) it would also support Geotagging. Like it’s arch-rival, the Tube will have a 3 inch touchscreen; it wont be multi-touch but will have stylus support. Not too much info has been revealed, so stay tuned for updates. However, we do know for sure that Nokia is definitely in the running for the ‘i-Killer’ title.

Samsung i900
Samsung's soon-to-be-launched i900 is already being touted as an i-Killer. The new handset will have a large 3.5 inch display with a 240 x 400 pixel resolution. It will support HSDPA/UMTS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth with A2DP. Other features include 8GB of internal memory, GPS, and a TV-out feature. Apart from the audio and video media player, it will also have an FM radio.

The i900 will have a 5MP auto-focus camera. It will run on Windows Mobile 6.1 pro. The specs are not out officially but some images floating around the web indicate that the i900 has just two buttons under the screen and what looks to be a pad of some sort. It could presumably be a touch-sensitive optical pad as in the i780 Windows Mobile device that was launched a while ago. So this would be Samsung’s second foray into the ‘i-Killer’ list.