Samsung mobile phones have certainly made progress on their original AMOLED screens – although they were amazingly bright and crisp, their glossy finish made viewing difficult in daylight. The Super AMOLED is considerably less reflective, and all the better for it. And the Wave’s Super AMOLED also happens to be super-responsive, too, which makes navigation a pure delight. Like the Galaxy, this highly sensitive capacitative screen supports multi-touch – to zoom in on a text or image, you just pinch your fingers together and, hey presto, you’re closer. You’ll also find that the phone includes HSDPA for super-fast web browsing over 3G, as well as GPS and the very latest 802.11n standard of Wi-Fi. You can also expand the integral 2 GB memory to a jaw-dropping 32 GB with a micro-SD card – and that camera’s a dream: not only will it automatically compensate for dark areas with a quick touch of the screen, it also shoots superb 720p HD video.

The Samsung Wave uses the new ‘Bada’ OS rather than Google’s Android, and Samsung believes this will deliver more smartphone features to less expensive phones. We’ll have to wait and see, but in the meantime, the Wave is a truly smart-looking smartphone at a reasonable price.

The AMOLED touch screen is bright, with vivid colours that really pop. Three navigation buttons are located just beneath it. Open the slider and you’re presented with a user-friendly keypad with back-lighting and well-spaced keys for easy texting.

One of the best features of the Tocco Ultra is its 8.0 megapixel camera. The camera is easy to use and the resulting photo quality is sharp. One of least favoured features is the resistive touch screen. The interface is weak and it can be difficult to use; sometimes taking several deliberate presses to get the phone to do what it is supposed to do.

To compare mobile phones, we look to the Sony Ericsson C905, which also features an 8 megapixel camera, only with Xenon flash versus the Tocco Ultra’s dual LED. The C905 also has Wi-Fi capability, which the Tocco Ultra does not.

The Samsung Tocco Ultra is available through several contract mobile phone deals, as well as on pay-as-you-go and SIM free.

The AMOLED screen is one of the best in the market in terms of touch screen responsiveness and picture quality, and when you compare mobile phones it truly puts its rivals to shame. Along with being able to play back HD video without losing quality, the screen also benefits from being able to be used in any lighting condition without losing clarity.

Other features in the Samsung Galaxy S which make it a powerful piece of kit include a 1GHz processor, which means the phone can easily keep up with the demands put upon it by the fast and responsive screen, and 3.0 Bluetooth technology, which provides fast data transfer.

Another major advantage of the Samsung Galaxy S is that as it uses Android 2.1 the downloadable app selection is much greater than on other Samsung smart phones such as the Wave, which uses the Samsung app store. The chassis for the Samsung Galaxy S is also sleekly designed and well built, something that Samsung occasionally struggles with even on their latest mobile phones.

Despite being one of Samsung’s leading smart phones, one major drawback of the Galaxy S is that it doesn’t have many generous contract plans when compared to other contract mobile phones.

The AMOLED screen is bright, with vivid colours that pop out at you when you’re looking at it. The screen is a touch screen, so you can dial or text from either it or your keypad, depending upon your preference. The keypad itself is very user-friendly and it’s back lit. When carrying the phone, it feels sturdy and well-balanced, whether open or shut. And the phone is pleasant to look at – featuring a dark smoky black with an eye-pleasing hot red accent – or is that hot pink? On that one, the user has to decide, because the colour is a bit ambiguous – although it does look good. There is also a blue version available through limited sellers.

The key feature of this phone is the 8.0 megapixel camera. It is smashingly wonderful. Downfalls for this phone include the touch screen, which can be frustrating to use and the widget system. Also, there is no Wi-Fi or dedicated headphone jack. All-in-all, the Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition is a stylish way to bring together the worlds of touch screen and keypad. The camera is one of the best, but the touch screen interface is weak.

If you’re looking for mobile phone deals on a contract mobile phone, the Samsung Tocco Ultra is available free with a £25 pay monthly plan.

The Samsung Pixon M8800 is an attractive phone that has a very camera-like look and feel to it. Plus it has an easy-to-get-to shutter button on the side for quick access and there is an automatic lens cover – a plus for any camera phone.

As to performance, the 8 megapixel camera provides good-looking photos when shot in daylight, with a minimal amount of shutter lag – something you often find in mobile phone cameras. The pictures are sharp and colours are bright and vivid. In lower light settings, the pictures lose some of their pizzazz, mainly due to the LED flash (versus the better Xenon type). Other features include slow-motion video shooting, and geo-tagging. The Samsung Pixon M8800 also supports full length film watching, and supports DivX and Xvid formats.

Missing from the Samsung Pixon M8800 is a 3.5 mm headphone jack and the pair of headphones that comes with the phone doesn’t do the music player justice. Another negative point with this phone is the use of a resistive versus capacitive screen. This is particularly noticeable when texting and the lack of response can be quite frustrating.

If you are considering cheap mobile phones with touch screen and a decent camera, the Pixon M8800 is definitely worth looking at. For mobile phone deals on contract, O2 has several plans. The phone is also available SIM free from PrePayMania.

If you have opted to have the Samsung Omnia Lite (B7300) as your new mobile phone then before you pre order one it is best to check the best deals on the market. If you are unsure as to which service provider to go to, it is made all the easier if you compare mobile phones online where often you can see different deals by different providers side by side making for a much more informed decision.

For example, you can pre order the Omnia Lite through one web based company who are offering this phone on the T-Mobile network for £35.00 per month for a 24 month contract. This may be a little steep for some but for a heavy mobile phone user it could be ideal as you get a free handset, 1200 free minutes any time any network and unlimited text messages. You also have the option of either 14 months half price line rental or a choice of a number of free gifts including £130.00 cash back or a Nintendo DSi.

As the Omnia Lite is one of the latest mobile phones you usually find that a free handset comes with a steeper line rental charge. One way around it is to pay an amount upfront for the phone; usually the more you pay for the phone the less the line rental is. Shopping around is recommended to find a good deal.

The Samsung Omnia 2 has been restyled from the original Omnia and is strikingly similar to the Samsung Jet.  It’s a lot heavier than the Omnia and the Jet but this potential negative turns into a big positive with a screen measuring 3.7 inches compared to 3.2 inches, and the resolution has been increased to 480 x 800 pixels.  The old TFT has been ditched in favour of an AMOLED display; it uses less power and looks fab.

As well as the external changes, the big inside change is the upgrade to the 6.5 version of Windows Mobile.  New users to the Windows Mobile operating system can sometimes be overwhelmed by the complex facilities but seasoned users will be thrilled with the flexible options.

The 6.5 version improves facilities such as photos, videos, My Phone and contact to the web.  Samsung have incorporated Windows Mobile version 6.5 with their own Touchwiz system to produce a user-friendly home screen with widgets to access sites such as Facebook. 

The audio system, camera and video are great and you can have nothing to complain about with any of these functions.

The Omnia 2 is a great phone and the only question mark would be the size; some people may find it rather bulky.

The phone was the first to include a 16 million colour display and fast 3G transfer of files with a download speed of 7.2 Mbps.

The camera is great for the price; ignore people who always moan that Samsung mobile phones don’t have good cameras.  It’s because those same people ignore the manual that gives out the advice to set the camera to the maximum resolution because that is not the default setting.

There are mobiles that have better cameras, but this one takes perfectly good images.

The music system comes with an FM radio and it supports the majority of the standard formats.  It has high-fidelity audio sound thanks to the Bang and Olufsen power amplifier.  The headphones can be plugged into the charger socket or you can opt for a Bluetooth wireless set. 

The Soul has a vast amount of memory, 100 Mbytes which is a real plus, and you can even add more with a memory card.  The phone also comes with email, Bluetooth and a document viewer.

The one major complaint about the Soul is the volume of the ring tones – they aren’t loud enough.  But that was only a percentage of reviewers; others considered the volume just perfect.

Although the snazzy, curvy snap-on colourful backs do give the phone a teen look, is it good enough to use?   The Genio Touch is easy to set up and customise, arranging your homepage how you want it takes no time at all and the operating system is similar in many ways to the Android OS.

Samsung has also included a half decent music player, and the audio quality is okay but has a tendency to sound tinny on occasions. The inclusion of a simple FM radio is a good addition but a lack of 3.5mm headphone jack is a definite down point and the connector supplied is a little vulnerable to damage.

Genio Touch, which comes with a 2.0-megapixel camera, is fine for the casual user taking snaps but the camera button, centrally located is in an awkward place. They have however made it easy for social network nuts to interface with all their favourite sites and download pictures to Facebook, Flickr, etc at the press of a button.

The lack of a dedicated keyboard is a disadvantage and there is no data cable included, as this is classed as an extra. Without the cable downloading music is a bit of a drawn out process. An interesting eye-catching phone and with a little more thought Samsung could have created a popular model.

But first things first. It looks good, has a screen that’s very bright indeed, thanks to AMOLED, although it’s not big enough to do justice to the excellent pictures from the five megapixel camera, which is an outstanding feature, especially as both video and images include anti-shake, guaranteeing a good shot, whilst geo-tagging is a small additional feature.

So what features really set the Samsung Lucido apart? You could say it’s made for awkward, even dangerous situations. A user who is bored rigid in company can hit a shortcut cut to place a fake call to himself (and even record a message so there’s a voice at the other end). It’s something many people might have wished for, and Samsung has made it a reality.

More importantly there’s a function that offers SOS texts, contacting numbers a user pre-assigns if necessary, while those same numbers will receive texts if someone attempts to steal the phone and put in another SIM card – as well as locate the phone by GPS. Those are decidedly good advances.

That said, the screen is small at a mere 2.2”, the keypad is cramped, especially the selection keys, and the onscreen menus do require some customisation to work well. But for those who feel they might find themselves in trouble or danger, the Samsung Lucido has a lot to offer.