The name here Black Gold might be a misnomer, as one of the limited editions of the U600 from Samsung looks black to some of us – Where’s the Gold? It’s here, no fear, as a second colour to opt for, the other being Black. The U600 range is an updated Ultra range, also called Ultra Edition II. Like the other models in that range the body is very thin at just 10.9 mm. However this doesn’t prevent it from being able to pack in a whooping 3.2 MP of camera resolution, MP3 player, Web browser when connecting with GSM quadband, GPRS and EDGE, and lots more features. Memory is a little smaller at 60MB, but there is a microSD memory card slot.

Samsung has always come up with quite innovative designs, like squashing the phone into ultra thinness, for one. The new phone for Christmas, the L600, has a rather winey makeover: grape-coloured. The purplish tone is not the only thing to get female punters’ hearts going up. The onboard pedometer would measure the steps one’s feet have taken to jog around the house. Other than these, the other features are quite mid-range. There is no 3G, just GSM and EDGE. The camera just about manages 2 MP. Luckily there is Bluetooth v2 for that wireless headphone, with FM if the MP3s don’t make you skip to the tune. It’s very light to hold at just 84 grams, but the display is smaller than 2 inches

O2 is no stranger to smartphones, what with having released quite a few of these recently. The latest crop to expect is in the XDA range, called Stellar. It is definitely looking stellar, very top of the range, running Windows Mobile 6 Professional. The camera is not quite 5 MP yet but the resolution is given a boost, up to 3.15 MP. And you get a second camera to do all your video calling when connecting via GSM quadband and 3G. The display is very big, at 2.8 inches, with lots of room to place on a virtual full-QWERTY keyboard. As expected, you’ll get GPS road direction help, and of course Wifi and Bluetooth.

This is the one Nokia N series phone that have been touted to support DVB-H technology mobile TV here.  Design-wise the outside looks and feels like any classic Nokia: the perennial rounded corners, 3 by 4 rows of keys and a display.  The DVB-H TV broadcast receiver doesn’t stick out but when in action you’d receive TV moving images on the 2.4-inch screen in 470 to 750MHz.  You can even set a reminder when your favourite TV program will come on.  And you can replay 30 seconds of a TV program. The 20 MB shared memory is really too little but the microSD works straight away after a hotswap.  When not watching mobile TV you have a 2MP camera, FM radio, MP3 player, and the usual SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging plus Push to Talk.