It’s been a bumpy road for Nokia. No one had foreseen there fall from such a high perch to where they sit now, almost blown to oblivion. On the back of a very poor operating system, Nokia has seen their share of the smartphone market erode from over 50% down to the low teen’s. Nokia has realised that it is a hardware company and not a software company.

They therefore decided that the only way out of the whole that they are in was to partner with someone who knew more about software, Microsoft. To differentiate itself from the other mobile phone companies, Nokia has decided that it will team up with Microsoft to produce Windows Phone 7 only hardware.

The first Nokia and Microsoft phone is their flagship Nokia Lumia 800. The Nokia Lumia 800 is very similar to the Nokia N9 in terms of appearance and runs very nice hardware.

There is a new challenger waiting in the ranks which will shake up the smartphone market. Google announced it’s second smartphone, the Galaxy Nexus which it has produced in conjunction with Samsung.

The Galaxy Nexus is a cutting edge phone which features the latest Android operating system, Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich.

The hardware itself features a dual-core 1.2ghz processor and 1GB of Ram. The phone is available in two memory sizes being 16gb and 32gb. The screen is a beautiful Super AMOLED screen with HD. The phone is ultra thin and has a tapered shape with one end being wider than the other. The phone also has a slight curve to it.

A strange hardware decision was only giving the phone a 5 megapixel camera. It is usually the norm these days to have an 8 megapixel camera.

The last big feature is that the phone is 4G / LTE capital making it capable of downloading at lighting fast speeds on capable networks.

You know that you have a hit on your hands when you have Apple knocking on your door trying to ban any product that you sell. That is what has happened to HTC and their HTC One X. Apple have gone to extraordinary steps to prevent HTC from selling this device.

Luckily for consumers they have not been able to achieve the same bans with the HTC One X smart phone. The second version has already sold 10 million units world wide and is expected to be one of the best selling phones in the world this year. One of the reasons for this success is that the HTC One X plans are priced very cheaply.

Samsung has a huge hit on their hands with the Samsung Galaxy S ii. It comes on the back of the success of the original version of the phone called the Samsung Galaxy S. The device is available in Australia on all the major carriers such as Crazy Johns, Telstra, Optus and Virgin. For such a great featured phone it is also very affordable as the Galaxy s2 plans are priced very reasonably.

The device has a number of excellent features. It is quad band on th 2G network as well as the 3G network. It is only 116 grams and is the thinnest phone on the market until the Motorola Droid RAZR is released.

The screen is a Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen as can display 16 million colours. The device has a screen resolution of 480 x 800 pixels and is 4.3 inches. The device features the best screen available, which is Corning’s Gorilla Glass.

The new Apple iphone 4s that has been launched recently by the leading smartphone manufacturer now leads the way to more innovative and high end competition among the mobile industry. But have you heard that you can actually have the new unit by simply joining in the win for free promos and contests being held in many websites today? This is one of the good news brought about by the company as well as many distributors as their way of saying thank you to all the loyal customers who have supported them since the beginning and have been the major factor why the brand still exists today. There is simply nothing that can stop you from joining the promo because it is so easy. The first thing to do is to check out many websites and try to check the mechanics and qualifications for the entry. Follow the simple instructions for joining and just wait till the end of the promo to see if you are one of the lucky winners.

The iPhone 4S was released last week by Apple CEO Steve Cook. The iPhone plans start at $199 and go up to $399. The iPhone 4S surprised most observers, not for it’s brilliance, but for its lack of difference with the iPhone 4. Most had tipped an exceptional product since it was Steve Cook’s first presentation.

The questions faced by consumers now is whether they should bother upgrading now or wait until the iPhone. Here are some thoughts.

The iPhone 4S looks and feels like an iPhone 4. If you’re hoping to be looking down at your iPhone and seeing something different, then don’t bother upgrading. The phone is exactly the same in appearance.

The new phone has been advertised as supporting 14.4 Mbps download speeds. This bumps it up to the same speeds as some Android phones however it is very unlikely that you will ever achieve anything near these speeds. 14.4 Mbps is what techies term as a theoretical maximum download speeds meaning you practically need to be standing underneath the tower with a perfect connection and no network congestion to achieve it. In most cases users will only achieve one tenth of this speed. Therefore, don’t upgrade expecting blistering fast download speeds.

There are no ‘must have’ features on the iPhone 4S that will make you feel left behind if you didn’t buy it. The main features that have been touted is the faster processor, better camera and Siri voice recognition. The processing speed of the iPhone 4 was nothing to be laughed at, applications load quickly, the phone is zippy and there is very little lag making a processor upgrade less desired.

The iPhone 4S price is the same as the previous version and reasonable, so if you are out of contract then it would make sense to upgrade rather than hold off for the next version.