Now that we passed into 2009 it’s time to recall all the cell phones released last year, choose the coolest ones and create a representative collection that comprises the latest technologies available on the market.
We won’t present them to you in a specific order, so if a cell phone you hate is covered at the end of the article it won’t mean we like it most.



Let’s start with the world’s toughest cell phone – Sonim XP3 – known also as the indestructible cell phone. Many people have tested its rugged capabilities and proved with demo videos posted over the Internet, that it’s indeed the strongest model available today.
It was released as an improvement for the previous model, Sonim XP1, and we included it in our collection because, unlike all the other handsets created for field word in harsh environments, Sonim XP3 also looks cool.

It comes in yellow and black and can be used at 1-meter deep under the water, features antiglare shock-resistant display, is salt-, fog-, humidity-, transport-, shock- and thermal shock-proof, while its keys support over 500,000 pushes.
Inside it features tri-band support, an ARM-9 processor, the Philips Nexperia 6120 platform, support for 20 languages, Bluetooth, up to 1000 SMS messages capacity, omni-directional microphone, 20-mm speaker, lots of applications pre-loaded, and a 6-hour battery with up to 320 hours of standby.
And these are only the basic features of this cool cell phone that just doesn’t break.
Play the video to see how it acts in an aquarium:


Starting last summer, when it comes to high-end smartphones created for business applications but backed with many communication functionalities, you just don’t know which one to choose between a BlackBerry and the new Nokia E71.



For Nokia fans it’s easy now, thanks to the world’s leading cell phone manufacturer who decided to add a very useful full QWERTY keyboard for texting on the go, 3G HSDPA 2100 high-speed Internet connectivity for browsing, a large 2.36-inch 16-million-color display, a 5-way scroll key, a 3.15MP digital camera with autofocus, secondary videocall camera, GPS receiver, Voice Command support, and up to 10 hours and 30 minutes of continuous talk time.

If we’d ask you what’s the coolest cell phone introduced by Nokia in 2008 you’d probably say Nokia N96. I won’t disappoint you. Nokia N96 was the coolest but that lasted until the company released Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, which is its first touchscreen cell phone.



Codenamed Tube, the model is spectacular because of its large 3.2-inch display of 16 million colors that supports finger input, an engaging user interface, accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate, proximity sensor for touchscreen’s auto turn-off, handwriting recognition, stereo speakers, unlimited phonebook entries, support for 81MB external memory, 3.6Mbps Internet speeds, Wi-Fi, built-in GPS, Voice Command feature, built-in 3.15MP digital camera with Carl Zeiss optics, and a talk time of no less than 8 hours and 45 minutes.



And here comes Samsung Cleo, a cute handset for ladies, optimized for texting on phone, and packed with a beauty accessory set consisting of a decorative phone charm, a Cake Kiss mulberry sorbet lip butter, and 15% discount coupon for Cake Beauty products.
Sporting an elegant and feministic exterior, the flip powder case-like handset features a QWERTY keyboard, MP3 player, built-in 1.3MP camera, 8GB external memory support, Internet access, email, Instant Messaging and Bluetooth among others.



Samsung Cleo became known after LG released the Lotus, another cool cell phone coming in purple and black, enriched with multimedia applications, a QWERTY keyboard, latest online communication tools, a 2.1-inch display, external screen for message alerts, 5.5 hours talk time and support for 12GB memory. It looks very similar in design concept with Samsung Cleo, but coming from a different cell phone producer, it deserves to be mentioned.



We’ll get to another technology sector this time and we’ll see the Motorola VC6096, high-end smartphone running on Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 operating system.
It looks veeery big because it is big in reality too, measuring 24.2 cm x 23.5 cm x 4.95 cm at a weight of 2.2Kg. That’s not nice for a cell phone but let’s see the features and we’ll talk after if you’ll still want to.

Also called the http://www.motorola.com/business/US-EN/VC6096_Mobile_Computer_US-EN++.do?vgnextoid=031320d8c164c110VgnVCM1000008406b00aRCRD VC6096 WWAN In-Vehicle/Fixed Mount Mobile Computer, this handset is meant to increase driver’s productivity delivering WWAN, WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telematics telematics support.

Motorola VC6096 runs with an XScale PXA270 624 MHz processor, and features also SD/MMC card support, Ethernet connectivity, 128MB SDRAM, 256MB Flash memory, a full backlight QWERTY keyboard with tactile feedback, rugged capabilities, centralized remote management, and many, many others.



We tried to exclude luxury cell phones from the collection, as well as models available only in Asia, but we just can’t miss NTT Docomo’s Separate Keitai handset that splits in two. We don’t know much about it because it’s a prototype created by Fujitsu and unveiled at CEATEC 2008 in Japan earlier this year, but we found out about its capability to separate the display from the keyboard module and use one of them for other functions such as MP3 player, Instant Messaging or web browsing.

The two parts’ margins can be stuck together on any side via the magnetic layers.
In the rest, the cool cell phone has all the other features of standard models.
Check this short video and see how it can be split.


One of the most rumored cool cell phones in 2008 was the HTC G1, known as the first Google Android phone. It runs on Google’s new operating system and supports lots of open-source applications for various sectors, starting from productivity and ending with entertainment.



In addition to the pre-loaded Google content that includes Google Maps with StreetView, YouTube? access, and others, HTC G1 provides 406 minutes of continuous talk time, a 3.2-inch side-sliding display with touchscreen, multi-page view, Digital Compass, Motion Sensor, 3G connectivity, GPS functions, and a 5-row QWERTY keyboard.
It is available for purchase in the United States starting September 2008 and in the United Kingdom starting November 2008.



Another high-end cool cell phone was developed by Samsung and called Highnote. It is a dual slider cell phone with an attractive design and the capability to slide out the keypad in the down side or the high-quality speaker at the top.
Featuring the One Click user interface, customizable menus, support for intensive texting, 2MP camera, Bluetooth, 8GB memopry, a 2-inch display and all the services enables by Sprint telecommunication company, Samsung Highnote is a great mobile companion for entertainment on the go.
It was named the Best Overall Product at CTIA 2008.



Sony Ericsson is the preferred brand when it comes to high-performance mobile phones for productivity, entertainment and gaming. The Sony Ericsson F305 gaming cell phone is the world’s first of its kind and can be used together with the award winning Zeemote JS1 controller designed for it.
You can use it for playing 3D games, listen to the music, send files wirelessly via Bluetooth, chat with friends online, take pictures with the built-in 2MP camera, listen to FM radio stations and upload pictures on your blog.



Do you like cool cell phones with unique design characteristics that make you stand out from the crowd? Maybe Sanyo Katana Eclipse X is what you need in your pocket.
This is a phone that lights up when it rings and allows you to assign specific lights to each contact in your phone book.
It was released at Sprint and features high-speed wireless transfers, live on-demand TV, up to 8GB of storage capacity, GPS navigation, over-the-air downloads, access to 150 radio channels, built-in 1.3MP camera with 12x zoom, SMS voice messaging, and support for 700 phone numbers, 1000 emails and 500 web site addresses.

Sanyo Katana Eclipse X comes with 40 lighting effects and playing music modes including blink, pulse, echo and multi-color patterns.



O2 Cocoon is another impressive phone concept awarded with Bronze at the International Design Excellence Awards 2008, for the hidden LED display that reveals incoming contacts and music track information. You can customize this external display to show the time, caller ID and others.
Next features include FM radio, up to 15 hours of playback, a built-in 2MP digital camera, Bluetooth, 2GB external memory support, 5 hours of talk time, QuickTime player for videos and the possibility to set wallpapers change every minute or hour.



The iPhone 3G problems continues to be a hot subject in all of its users’ discussions, but this doesn’t stop it to be the world’s most advanced mobile phone. If you read more about the iPhone 3G specs you’ll notice it features the latest and most powerful technologies developed for cell phones, such as 3G, multi-touch sensitivity, GPS module, accelerometer sensor, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and an intelligent virtual keyboard.



BlackBerry Storm, rumored as BlackBerry Thunder, is the first BlackBerry touchscreen smartphone released in 2008. It sports a 3.25-inch large full-touchscreen display with a cool interface, built-in 3.2MP camera, an advanced virtual QWERTY keyboard, advanced Internet browser, options for SureType or multi-tap keyboard, landscape mode, accelerometer sensor, 16GB storage and 5 hours and 30 minutes of continuous talk time.



In 2008, Motorola released the MING family of high-end and cool cell phones with touchscreen interface. MING models sport transparent displays and feature dual SIM dual-standby capability, so you could keep two SIM cards active simultaneously. They also feature GPS support, multimedia applications, productivity applications, panorama shooting mode, camera scan talking dictionary, 3.2MP resolution for pictures, SMS firewall, business card reader, document management, translation software, FM radio and others.



One of the most pleasant surprises of last year was, of course, Sony Ericsson C905 camera phone with advanced functionalities such as built-in GPS capability, guided navigation via the Tele Atlas digital maps, and Wayfinder Navigator which includes mapping for 150 countries, turn-by-turn directions for 50 countries, access to points of interest databases, route planning, route sharing, Wayfinder SpeedAlert featuring visual and audible speed camera- and speed warnings, 22,000 speed cameras in 22 countries across Europe, information about ongoing police controls, country specific traffic information when crossing borders, and lots of other utilities.
In addition, the Sony Ericsson camera phone comes with 3G HSDPA high-speed Internet connectivity, accelerometer sensor, 2GB memory, Wi-Fi, RSS reader, 9 hours of talking and its strongest feature – the built-in 8MP digital camera with autofocus, image stabilizer, 30 fps video recording and Xenon flash.



The famous phone with 8 dynamic graphic interfaces called LG KF600 was released in stores worldwide under different nicknames. It won a 2008 iF Product Design Award for its unique feature accessible via the touch-sensitive display, and more than this it comes with 25MB internal memory, music player, Bluetooth, email, Internet web browsing, video recording capability via the built-in camera of no less than 3.15MP, FM radio and document viewer.
It enables up to 4 hours of non-stop talk time and 480 hours of standby.
Who managed to get it loves it.



And yes… how could we forget the Samsung Instinct released during the year that just passed!
This cell phone was lucky to have such a huge and intensive promotion everywhere as an iPhone killer that sales were impressive in number.
The full touchscreen handset with haptics doesn’t feature all of iPhone’s technologies but at least it has both productivity and entertainment applications so you won’t miss anything while playing your media on the go.

Samsung Instinct has high-speed Internet connectivity, GPS turn-by-turn directions powered by Sprint, communication features, built-in 2MP camera and support for up to 8GB od storage on an external microSD card.
Its base powers come from Sprint’s services enables as soon as you become a subscriber.

Let’s go further and see another cell phone that has something new to bring on the market. It is about the Toshiba Portege G910 with biometric fingerprint sensor.



In addition to the flip design and nice lines, the handset is a great texting companion that allows you to stay in touch with friends, colleagues and family anywhere you are.
The special security feature brought by the biometric fingerprint sensor allows access to the stored data only to the right user.

Toshiba Portege G910 runs on the Windows Mobile 6 Professional operating system with lots of applications, plus external memory support, HTML browser, 2MP camera, email messaging, GPS receiver and video telephony.

At last we need to mention Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1, a mobile handset covered by many online publications worldwide. It has this side-sliding QWERTY keyboard for intensive texting on the go, and the capability to change the view to the landscape mode for a more comfortable web browsing experience.



The metal body integrates a 4-way key and an optical joystick for easy switching between applications, while the built-in 3.2MP camera shoots with autofocus, 3x digital zoom, and can record videos.

Besides these, the handset comes also with AGPS, external memory support, RSS reader, picture blogging, handwriting recognition, multimedia player, Bluetooth and Windows Mobile 6 additions.
This is our collection of the coolest cell phones released last year. If you think there are other models that deserve more attention don’t hesitate to leave a comment and tell us about your preference.