Clone Wars

Okay so almost every smartphone that has been released in the past year or so is compared to the iPhone, and more recently to the rumoured 3G iPhone.? The Samsung i900 (which as usual has a name as well as a model number - Samsung Omnia) is actually a very close competitor to the Apple iPhone in both specifications and looks, and should also give the HTC Touch Diamond a run for its money.

The Samsung i900 has just been officially announced by the mobile phone manufacturer, along with its full specifications - including the fact that it will run on Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro, which should please smartphone users.? The Samsung i900 is fully touchscreen with just three buttons on the very bottom of the phone (answer call, end call and menu), the front panel is encased in a silver edging and has an attractive brushed steel back panel.

The main characteristics that make it similar to the iPhone are the two different models that will be available - 8GB and 16GB, the large 3.2 inch touchscreen, Wi-Fi function and accelerometer - which allows you to rotate the screen (from portrait to landscape and back again) and the image or picture will rotate accordingly to fit the screen.

As well as the above the Samsung i900 also has a fantastic 5 megapixel camera with flash and autofocus, inbuilt GPS, a media player capable of playing MP3, DivX and WMA files, an FM radio, and HSDPA for fast internet speeds.

Despite the Samsung i900 being available in both 8GB and 16GB models both will also come with a microSD card slot for further memory expansion - so storage really should not be a problem.? And of course you have the usual Bluetooth, USB and Microsoft document viewer that you would expect on a smartphone.

The Samsung i900 is due for release in July which should coincide with the release of the Apple iPhone 3G version.