Basic Tab Phone Design Challenges the iPhone

The Basic Tab mobile phone design manages to achieve a new interpretation of the whole “iPhone thing”, copied over and over again by big handset manufacturers. Its designer, Jaren Goh focused more on looks, than on futuristic specs and he did a splendid job, so we might as well call this a fashion device.

Just look at the wide black screen at the front of the Basic Tab phone, a tad more elegant than Apple’s approach. Notice that the display is placed on top of a metal part and it gets a bit of RAZR aggressiveness going on. In case you’re not convinced that this is really a fashion phone, you should check out the camera’s metallic tab at the back. Precious, just precious…

What You Can Do With Wi-Fi In Your iPhone,iPod ?

Wirelessly download music from the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store; surf the Web; check e-mail; find locations using Google Maps.

What We Like
The iPod touch is the most feature-packed PMP on the market, and delivers a lot of what makes the iPhone so compelling. This Wi-Fi device deliciously recreates the desktop browsing experience with Safari, and the multi-touch display makes it easy and fun to zoom in on photos and Web pages, as well as scroll through photos and albums. We also dig the Weather and Stocks widgets.

We were able to read the latest headlines at CNN.com in just 15 seconds (the page loaded completely in just more than 40 seconds), wirelessly download Michael Cera and Ellen Page’s “Anyone Else But You” over the air in 31 seconds, and enjoy The Irate Gamer’s latest videogame rants on YouTube (albeit with some minor buffering).

With the January software upgrade ($19.99), the iPod touch got even better with rich HTML Mail and Google Maps, which uses Skyhook Wireless’ triangulation technology to pinpoint users’ current locations.

What We Don’t
No over-the-air video downloads or Flash support.

Verdict
The iPod touch makes the most of its Wi-Fi functionality, making it the crown jewel of wireless PMPs.