Mobile phone interfaces - the good, the better, the best

2009 has seen several new phone interfaces enter the world. Lets take a look at three of the hottest.

LG Viewty Smart

The first Viewty was one of the most successful phones LG have ever made, and now, the true successor to the name has arrived in the shape of the LG Viewty Smart. Featuring the new touch-based S-Class UI, the LG Viewty Smart is an incredible phone to use, with slick animations and smooth transitions between screens and menus. As well as the 8MP camera in the LG Viewty Smart, you also get a stunning multimedia player, and super-fast internet access, making the LG Viewty Smart one of the coolest camera phones out there.

HTC Hero

Android is trying to take over the world, and its new home is the beautiful HTC Hero. It has all the good stuff that made the first Android phone (the G1) good, but puts it all in a touchscreen-only body, which is both sleek and sexy. Since the keyboard has been removed, the HTC Hero also has a full, onscreen keyboard, and a sumptuous new interface called the Sense UI. You also get the Android Marketplace, which lets you download and install third party apps to your HTC Hero, and it ends up creating a smartphone that really can morph into whatever you want it to be. It is the one, the only, HTC Hero.

Palm Pre

So, there's the LG Viewty Smart, with its S-Class UI. And then, there's the HTC Hero, which gives Android a new interface. What does the Palm Pre offer that's different? Well, one could talk about the WebOS interface it uses, as it's unique in the annals of phone history. And indeed, there's one feature of WebOS, directly related to the keyboard, that makes the Palm Pre so cool. Universal search. Now, many phones do that, but the Palm Pre does it so much more cleverly. Just start typing what you want to know about, from the front screen, and the Palm Pre will search your contacts, apps, music, pictures, and even the internet, to interpret and find what you're looking for. That really is a cool feature, and it may well make the Palm Pre the coolest QWERTY phone out there. If you value the interface above all else, the Palm Pre is the phone for you.