Production of the HTC Desire may be ceasing, with the last batch of stock reportedly having entered the UK.

Online phone retailer Clove writes that, “we have been informed that no more [HTC Desires] will be coming in to the UK,” although it does note that HTC has not confirmed that it is stopping production.

We’ve asked HTC whether the rumours are true so there is still hope for the much-loved Android until we hear back.

Farewell, old friend

It’s hard to believe that the HTC Desire has only been with us for sixteen months, having taken its first tentative steps into the spotlight at Mobile World Congress 2010.

But my, how it’s grown since then; it was the first phone ever to be awarded five stars in an in-depth TechRadar review and sales went through the roof with the Desire, providing Android with its first real iPhone rival.

And now, in a world clogged with the HTC Sensation, HTC Desire S, HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z and myriad other turbo-charged Android handsets, it looks as though it may be time for the original Desire to pick up its gold carriage clock and mosey on out of the market.

Bjork is set to release her new album Biophilia as a multimedia project, comprised of teb separate iPad apps.

It’s an intriguing move from the pixie-like Icelandic songstress, though there is still no confirmed release dates or pricing for Bjork’s new songs/apps.

An innovative app album

Biophilia will be Björk’s seventh album to date, with the title itself meaning “love of life or living systems” and a whole host of music and video production talent lined up to help out on the project, including feted director, Michel Gondry.

Biophilia is set to be premiered as a multimedia live extravaganza at this year’s Manchester International Festival (MIF), were she has a three-week residency throughout July.

The album will be comprised of 10 separate apps under the umbrella of one ‘mother app’ – each app will allow the user to explore each tracks in different ways, or remix them in various playful ways.

Bjork commissioned interactive artist Scott Snibbe to help create her new app.

“Björk’s put herself way at the forefront here by saying, ‘We’ll release this album and these apps at the same time and they’re all part of the same story.’ The app is an expression of the music, the story and the idea,” Snibbe told The Guardian.

Snibbe gives the example of one song, called Virus, which he describes as “a kind of a love story between a virus and a cell. And of course the virus loves the cell so much that it destroys it.”

It sounds adequately bonkers, as we’ve come to expect from Iceland’s leading pop star over the last 20 years. And we look forward to seeing Bjork unveil the whole thing at MIF next month.

We’ve been treated to a cornucopia of high quality mobile phones recently, but it’s a certain two that have got the tongues wagging: the dual-core majesty of the HTC Sensation and the Samsung Galaxy S2.

We’ve reviewed them both already, but so often we’re asked the question of ‘which should I buy?’

So here’s TechRadar’s detailed and in-depth look at the differences between the two handsets – and if you still can’t decide after reading through our guide, then we can only suggest you toss a coin in your local phone retailer.

Build quality

There’s a marked difference between the HTC Sensation and Samsung Galaxy S2 when it comes to the design of the devices – which basically comes down to thickness and weight.

The Sensation has a plastic and aluminium chassis combined with a relatively heavy glass front – this line-up means the 148g weight of the phone is lighter than the likes of the Desire HD, but markedly heavier than the Galaxy S2, which weighs in at a sublime 116g.

The Galaxy S2 is also by far the slimmer of the two phones, offering a stupidly thin chassis that’s just 8.5mm thin, meaning it fits beautifully in any pocket and will make you panic on occasion simply because you might not be able to feel it and you’ll think a pickpocket has come along.

What’s odd about the HTC Sensation is that despite the aluminium chassis, the phone still feels a little plastic-like in the hand. This is exacerbated by HTC’s decision to make the whole rear of the phone an antenna, meaning the whole rear peels away to leave just a phone and screen.

We like the theory, but in practice it’s a veritable nightmare to get the back off as your fingers constantly get in the way.

However, no matter how cheap the feeling of the Sensation, when you take the back off the Galaxy S2 it’s infinitely more budget. The rear panel is made of flimsiest plastic out there it seems – not feeling good when taken off, but when attached firmly to the phone offers a cool mesh finish.

Winner: Draw. This is purely down to opinion – some will find the S2 too flimsy, some the Sensation too bulky. Both are very well built though with Gorilla Glass, and we promise you won’t be upset by either.

Interface

Both the Sensation and the Galaxy S II are running Android 2.3.3, and both have had an overlay placed on top of Google’s OS by their parents, clearly wanting to stamp their individuality onto their flagship smartphone.

We’ll start by looking at the power under the finger of each device, and we’re presented with a pretty even contest once more – both will react with the utmost speed, which is especially impressive on the HTC Sensation with its 3D Sense 3.0 overlay.

We’ve long stated we’re fans of this UI, and with the new iteration it’s even better, with upgraded widgets and cooler new spinning animations – plus that lock screen, with easy access applications, is to die for.

TouchWiz shouldn’t be ruled out though, with a snap underneath the finger that we simply can’t fault – the fact it scores nearly 50% better in benchmark tests than the Sensation is felt here.

A multitude of re-sizeable widgets, a simple menu system and more advanced music controls in the notifications bar are only let down by the cheap-feeling lock screen, that might as well have come straight from the developer’s lab.

Winner: HTC Sensation, simply because Sense UI was already great, and just got a little better.

Screen

The screen technology on offer for both is markedly different here – we have the Super LCD from the HTC Sensation, and the Super AMOLED Plus from the Galaxy S II.

You’d think it’s was a no brainer, as the Samsung technology has always been class leading, with superbly clear colours and contrast ratio – but HTC has a trick up its sleeve, packing in qHD resolution to take advantage of the dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon at the heart.

This means that the image on the 4.3-inch screen (which is actually thinner than the Galaxy S2 thanks to the aspect ratio) is that little bit sharper thanks to a great pixel density, contributing to great internet viewing and pleasant video playback. Colours are well reproduced in all aspects too, but the fact it still needs a backlight means that at high brightness the screen can look a little washed out.

Plus chuck a little bit of sunlight at the display and it will all but disappear at the lower brightness echelons as the curse of the HTC phone strikes once again. It’s not terrible anymore, but it’s certainly not something to crow about.

then we come to the Super AMOLED Plus, and it deserves that suffix in spades. When we first saw the phone in Barcelona, we were blown away by the quality, and it’s a screen that just keeps giving no matter what you do with it.

From outdoor visibility in nearly every scenario (plus a special setting from Samsung to make it easier to see in really bright conditions) we love to look at the display, despite ‘only’ running WVGA (800 x 480) resolution.

From watching video to simply spinning through the homescreens, we can’t help but love using the Galaxy S2 and cooing over its display.

Winner: The Samsung Galaxy S2. It’s the display in the world right now and will need something special to knock it from its pedestal.

You know how mobile phones used to make calls and suchlike with aplomb? Well, thankfully some engineers have remembered this and made efforts to improve the phone experience on devices, and both the HTC Sensation and Samsung Galaxy S2 have benefitted.

Calling

Both the Sensation and the S2 have dual microphones, but we couldn’t see any evidence of the Sensation using the technology very well at all – in even the mildest of breezes we were told we couldn’t be heard. Compare that to the Sensation and you’ll see that the noise cancelling is a real boon – every word is clear and the microphone super sensitive.

Both phones have decent speakers on the back, so conference calling shouldn’t be a problem, and even throw in a smidgen of bass here and there too.

Contacts

The contacts section of both phones is based on the standard Android system, but both make special effort to customise the experience a little bit better than the normal OS.

HTC is the clear winner here though, as the Facebook and Twitter integration, combined with the ability to link names together automatically better than any other brand on the market, is a super-cool combo. We like the fact that the Samsung Galaxy S2 has a smooth interface for scrolling through the names and an easier method of setting the default contacts, but for a phonebook HTC can’t be beaten.

Winner: A tricky one, as both have positives, but we think the Samsung Galaxy S2 shades it with superior hardware offering a better calling experience.

Messaging

This is more about keyboards than the overall messaging systems, as both offer all the bells and whistles Google has built into Android.

We’re talking Exchange Mail, all the webmail providers, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, IM through Google Talk – you name it, it’s there.

Special mention should go to Samsung here though, as it’s managed to finally sort out that Social Hub to actually be useful, making it a great inbox for all your messaging services, including Facebook and Twitter.

When it comes to the keyboard though there’s a clear winner: it’s the HTC Sensation, with the eerily accurate offering we’ve seen since the long-forgotten days of the HTC Hero.

Typing a word on the Samsung Galaxy S2 is fine, although the auto-correct is a little bit off and hitting the full stop instead of the space bar happens around once every fifth word.

But the spell checker on the Sensation is out of this world, and while the full stop issue is prevalent here, the overall experience is speedy, accurate and an all-round more comforting experience, meaning you won’t accidentally send sexual expletives to your Mother.

Winner: HTC Sensation for bringing the same excellent keyboard to the table

Internet

When it comes to internet browsing, Android is a great browser full stop, offering fast speeds, Flash integration and cool pinch to zoom features.

The Sensation takes the early lead in this category, with the text reflow system working magically as ever – no matter how close you pinch to zoom in, the text will re-jumble around the page to fit.

The Flash integration is slightly, just slightly more sluggish than the Galaxy S2, and while the display is brighter, the Super AMOLED Plus comes into its own here, giving you pin sharp text and the ability to zoom in as far as you’d like – not that you’d need to very often though.

But there’s one thing in our minds that takes the HTC Sensation ahead of the S2 when it comes to internet browsing, and that’s the ability to switch between mobile and full internet sites – this is most prevalent on websites where an automatic redirect is in place for mobile browsers.

There are always workarounds, but for those unable or unwilling to put these in place the Galaxy S2 will be frustrating compared to a desktop browser.

Winner: The HTC Sensation builds on the Taiwanese brand’s solid performance in internet browsing.

Camera

Both of the phones are well matched in this area, with an 8MP offering making a decent fist of things, although the Sensation has a dual, rather than single, LED flash (the S2 version is so bright it might melt your eyes though).

Both phones can also record in 1080p at 30fps, which is jolly clever, so check out our photo and video comparisons below to see the difference in quality:

Samsung Galaxy S2:

Click here to see the full res version

HTC Sensation:

Click here to see the full res version

A standard shot with a lot of backlight – neither camera picks out the tower particularly well

Samsung Galaxy S2:

Click here to see the full res version

HTC Sensation:

Click here to see the full res version

The touch to focus option really only marginally helps the Sensation – the Samsung Galaxy S2 barely at all

Samsung Galaxy S2:

Click here to see the full res version

HTC Sensation:

Click here to see the full res version

The Samsung Galaxy S2 is more capable in dappled light though, differentiating well between the light levels

Samsung Galaxy S2:

Click here to see the full res version

HTC Sensation:

Click here to see the full res version

The Galaxy S2 clearly has the better macro mode, with higher sharpness and more natural colours thanks to a dedicated focus setting

Samsung Galaxy S2:

Click here to see the full res version

HTC Sensation:

Click here to see the full res version

Again, the colours are the key thing here – the detail is roughly the same from both cameras

Samsung Galaxy S2:

Click here to see the full res version

HTC Sensation:

Click here to see the full res version

The Samsung Galaxy S2 has a 2MP front facing camera compared to the HTC Sensation’s VGA offering, and is a superior option

Samsung Galaxy S2:

Click here to see the full res version

HTC Sensation:

Click here to see the full res version

Samsung Galaxy S2:

Click here to see the full res version

HTC Sensation:

Click here to see the full res version

The exposure settings do help a lot to improve darker scenes, although the detail is slightly lower when the brightness is increased

Samsung Galaxy S2:

Click here to see the full res version

HTC Sensation:

Click here to see the full res version

These more natural scenes show the difference between the cameras – the Sensation prefers more vivid colours, where the Galaxy S2 is better at detail capture and snapping more natural colours

Video

Here’s a couple of videos we took simultaneously with both cameras – there’s not a lot between them in terms of quality, but the stereo recording of the Sensation helps reduce wind noise.

(Remember to hit up the 1080p option in the corner of each video to see them at maximum resolution).

With this sample, you can see and hear the differing reactions to strong wind – plus see the HTC Sensation’s ability to re-work the lighting conditions to match a tapped focus.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S2 – with a faster shutter speed and slightly more features to play with, combined with a smoother shutter action, it takes the title from its HTC rival.

Media

Both the HTC Sensation and Samsung Galaxy S2 pack a fully working media suite, from FM radio to a wide range of music and video file format playback options.

However, in nearly every aspect, the Galaxy S2 outdoes the HTC Sensation when it comes to media – and not just because it has the sumptuous Super AMOLED Plus screen.

Firstly, it’s slightly ahead when it comes to codec support, with the S2 also deciding that it’s cool with showing DivX files as well as the normal Xvid/MP4/WMV offerings that the Sensation can manage.

Plus there’s the difference in media players too – the S2 has a great video player that lets you manipulate the aspect ratio, where the Sensation only uses the Gallery to jump into videos – with no labels to let you know which is which, something that really irks when you’ve got loads from a certain series in there.

When it comes to music, things are a little closer, with the Samsung S2 just edging the contest sonically. Bass levels are deeper on the Samsung offering, and the level of crosstalk from the device is minimal, just a shade better than the Sensation.

We’re also big fans of the easier music manipulation from the notification bar – the S2 has full track skipping control, where HTC has gone with a single pause and play button. However, we do want to give the Sensation props for having a really cool lock screen widget, with a little piece of spinnable album art to play with.

Winner: Hands down, no contest, the Samsung Galaxy S2. There’s a reason Samsung is happy to turn the Galaxy phones into PMPs, and that’s the sheer range of functionality and hardware built around media.

Battery

A hugely important category for any possible phone buyer, and one we’ve spent a long time testing and making sure we’ve come to the right conclusion (even sending back our first Sensation review unit after some decidedly odd results from our initial tests).

The good news is both of the phones will manage to last over a day on a single charge, even with the likes of Push Email and Wi-Fi buzzing away in the background. However, be careful when downloading applications that might not have been fully tested, as we found a few that decided to suck the life unfairly out of our devices.

In terms of the victor here, it really depends what you use the phone for. Under ‘normal’ usage, by which we mean around an hour of music use, perhaps half an hour of video and push email and social networking applications running in the background, perhaps with a spot of mapping to go with it, the Samsung Galaxy S2 is ahead for battery longevity.

This is mainly down to the decision to put a 1650mAh battery inside the super-slim phone, where HTC has gone with a 1540mAh offering for the Sensation. Why HTC never likes to have a market-leading battery under the hood, we’ll never know – this problem could be sorted in a single upgrade.

The only issue when it comes to battery life we can see is the Samsung Galaxy S2′s superb screen: you’ll find yourself using it a lot more for video and internet browsing, so be ready for the necessary hit in battery life.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S2 – mostly for daring to pack a bigger battery pack under the hood

Connectivity and storage

We felt this category should be added in as both of the brands have put a lot of effort into getting as much technology under the hood as possible, helping future proof the devices for the future.

Aside from the spectacularly odd decision from Samsung over NFC (announcing it at Mobile World Congress, then mysteriously releasing phones without it, before announcing future models will have it) the Galaxy S2 definitely has the greater amount of functionality built in.

Both phones have HDMI-output through the microUSB slot (although neither have a cable in the box) and both have Bluetooth 3.0 on board, DLNA streaming software and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n connectivity. While the Samsung is certainly less powerful when it comes to connecting to Wi-Fi networks (we found up to two bars difference in identical conditions between the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the Sensation) it slightly leads in mobile signal according to our tests.

Where the Samsung Galaxy S2 comes into its own is for things like USB On The Go, where users can plug a USB stick into the phone using the (non-supplied) adaptor, plus an improved DLNA All Share server making it easier to port content to a big screen – although the Sensation is more than half decent at this too.

Faster HSDPA downloads speeds for the Samsung Galaxy S2 – 20.1Mbps compared to only 14.4Mbps for the Sensation – mean it’s slightly more future proof when the mobile networks start offering more speed too.

When it comes to storage, the Galaxy S2 is miles ahead – we’re talking at least 16GB of internal storage (32GB also available, although not widely in the UK) plus 2GB further storage on top of that.

Compare that to the 1.5GB of internal storage of the Sensation, and you can see that HTC is lagging behind – and the Sensation isn’t the first phone the company has done this with. While it’s mostly fine when it comes to media, as there’s an 8GB card onboard, if you’re downloading tonnes of applications then you might fill this up quite quickly if they can’t be stored on SD card.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S2. There’s not a lot in it when it comes to connectivity, but the S2 can connect up everything the Sensation can and then flaunts its extra storage right in its face.

Verdict

It’s a tricky one to call this, as we’ve been looking forward to the battle between these two dual-core wonders for so long we weren’t sure we could decide which was more worthy.

Over the course of this test we’ve gone back and forth over which to plump for, as both the Sensation and the Samsung Galaxy S2 have a cracking set of features with gorgeous hardware for all kinds of phone connoisseur.

And while it is ridiculously close between the two devices, we think the Galaxy S2 is the overall winner, thanks to its combination of improved connectivity, slimmer chassis and superbly clear and bold screen.

That’s not to say the HTC Sensation isn’t a great phone too – we love HTC Sense 3.0 and the additional functionality that the improved UI brings, plus the larger screen has the highest resolution of any HTC phone thus far.

So we’re crowning the Samsung Galaxy S2 our victor in the battle between the dual-core heavyweights, but if you’ve already got an HTC Sensation winging its way to you, don’t despair as it’s a very, very close second.

We set the HTC Wildfire S up against the Samsung Galaxy Ace

We compare two diminutive handsets with the HTC Wildfire S taking on the Samsung Galaxy Ace.

Form:

Samsung Galaxy Ace – 112.4 x 59.9 x 11.5 mm, 113 g

HTC Wildfire S – 101.3 x 59.4 x 12.4 mm, 105 g

The Wildfire S doesn’t look very different from the original Wildfire, and that was never a particularly attractive handset in the first place – it’s stocky and a bit dull to look at really.

The Ace looks like a shrunken version of the Galaxy S but it’s been scaled down nicely keeping some fairly flattering proportions.

It has a much more pleasing look and a sleeker profile than the Wildfire S, which makes it look much more premium even if the spec is more humble.

Winner – Samsung Galaxy Ace

Display:

The Samsung Galaxy Ace’s display setup isn’t exactly going to get your pulse racing, it has a 3.5-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen at 320 x 480 pixels and 164 dots-per-inch (dpi). The TouchWiz 3.0 user interface (UI) is pre-loaded on the handset and other features include a reinforced Gorilla Glass screen, multi-touch input and an accelerometer sensor.

The Wildfire S’ TFT capacitive touchscreen is smaller still at 3.2-inches and has the same resolution as the Samsung but at a higher 180 dpi.

It features the same toughened Gorilla Glass and an accelerometer sensor and comes with the HTC Sense UI.

The Wildfire’s screen may be smaller but the picture quality should be noticeably better thanks to the higher dpi.

Winner – HTC Wildfire S

Storage:

HTC’s Wildfire S packs internal storage and RAM in equal measures with 512MB of each and has card support for Micro SD up to 32GB.

The Ace has only 158MB of RAM internally, storage is entirely on cards with up to 32GB Micro SD supported and a 2 GB card supplied.

Not exactly spectacular from either candidate but the Wildfire S does better here.

Winner – HTC Wildfire S

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Vodafone has confirmed it will be putting the HTC ChaCha on sale imminently on its Facebook page.

The next ‘Facebook Phone’ (after the HTC Salsa and INQ Cloud Touch) with a dedicated Facebook sharing button on the front still doesn’t have a price, but will come with a wider data bundle as the network looks to push a greater variety of content sharing.

If you can manage to read past the overly-enthusiastic and slightly mis-spelled wall posting on the Facebook page, this is what Vodafone has to say (no, we don’t know what it means by play either):

“If you love Facebook, you’ll love the HTC ChaCha! Coming soon to Vodafone – really soon – the HTC ChaCha lets you share loads of things to Facebook at the push button. With our new price plans, including free BT Openzone WiFi, there are plenty of chances to play too!”

Cheaper specs

The new phone comes with a 2.6-inch touchscreen and full QWERTY keyboard, plus that all important Facebook key for chucking pictures and links to your social networking buddies.

We haven’t got any idea on pricing as yet from Vodafone, but we reckon it will be around £20 a month as a budget offering from the more youthful Facebook lovers.

iOS sing-off Lyric Legend has come to Android, and is currently free to download

Often wondered how well do you know your lyrics? Well, now you can find out with Lyric Legend.

First released on iPhone, Lyric Legend amassed 1.8 million downloads since it landed on the App Store in August of 2010, and now it’s the turn of Android to have its voice heard.

Unlike most games of this genre, you follow the lyrics instead of the music. Tapping as the lyrics appear and in time is the key. Not so easy with multiple words on screen, so you will need to learn or already know the songs.

There are quite a few artists to listen to, spanning quite a few genres. Awesome New Republic, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Owl City, Andy Grammer and The All-American Rejects any many others can be downloaded via the game’s music store.

Lyric Legend is currently free on Android as it’s in a beta phase, but downloading extra songs will cost you. 80 Gold Notes costs around $0.99 (around 70p), enough to get you a song.

Thankfully the stingier types can enjoy seven free songs to get you hooked, a generous number if you ask us.

We can sing Lyric Legend’s praises as it was a great deal of fun on iPhone and as this comes from the same capable TuneWiki stable – it’s definitely worth a look, especially as it’s free.

The full (non-beta) version is expected to ‘available shortly’ on the Android Marketplace.

We review the new location-aware Quidco, an app that delivers vouchers and freebies to your iPhone as you walk through the shop’s door

We remember when a corporate competition – on the back of a Corn Flakes packet, a bag of Crisps, or on Tiz Waz – required you to answer a question that was more challenging than ‘What’s your mobile phone number (so we can hassle you forevermore, forevermore)?’

These days questions to get a special offer are just a rouse to engineer your consent so a company can invade your privacy with a clear conscience. Your only other option to get a freebie voucher is to trawl a series of oft suspicious website, packed with adverbs and affiliate links that rarely result in a saving.

Thank the heavens then for the new spate of iPhone apps that genuinely want to offer you a discount or a voucher for your participation – and the prerequisite personal data intrusion, of course. The latest addition to this burgeoning genre is Quidco, which promises a growing library of special offers that are just around the corner; both figuratively speaking, and literally.

This app, you see, is interested in your physical location, and uses this geographical data to deliver vouchers, offers and exclusive deals from nearby businesses. In many respects it follows the precedent set down by the likes of Foursquare, requiring you to ‘check in’ to locations as you go through the door.

Although some businesses are happy to broadcast their special offers a bit more publicly, Quidco also gives shops, restaurants, pubs, and service providers the option to deliver their vouchers depending on your patronage. These offers don’t actually land on your iPhone until you check in to the actual high street premises, and although it’s early days yet, from what we’ve seen these check in-specific offers seem to be a bit more giving than their more available counterparts.

You can search by company name if you’re going somewhere specific, but perhaps more useful is its location-based offers that tell you where and how much you can save within a certain radius. You can call up Google Maps, too, and have the app plot out any nearby offers visually, which is a great way to make a decision on where you want to shop, as well as finding out what’s nearby.

Quidco also brings you an in-app ‘cashback’ system, which returns a portion (in our currently location, between 2.5 and 8 per cent depending on the offer) of the money you spend to your Quidco account. That’s not to say you’re expected to spend in order to use Quidco – this is a free app, beginning to end – but spending after checking in can return actual cash discounts to your card.

What might make the more paranoid among us flinch, and quite rightly, is you must enter your card details into the Quidco app, which checks the number off against the card used during the cashback-compatible purchase in order to route the saving back to you. It already asks for a fair amount of personal data, enough to make the privacy conscious wary, and while intentions are undoubtedly admirable, it feels like a big ask allowing your credit card number to float around the digital ether in such a manner.

But potential security concerns aside, Quidco must be applauded for being a lot more open and reciprocal than the majority of its voucher-based competitors. Naturally its success hinges on the quality and quantity of its deals, so we’ll have to wait and see if the Quidco craze catches on. But from what we can tell, it’s got all the ingredients to build a successful bridge between consumer and local businesses – so long as those vouchers give us something we want.

We pit the HTC Flyer up against the Android 3.1-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

HTC is no stranger to acclaim. Its smartphones are widely regarded as industry leading specimens and innovation and design excellence have become synonymous with the Taiwanese manufacturer.

But up until recently it was a stranger to the tablet market, and we’ve decided to put the company’s premier tab, the Flyer, through its paces by placing it up against a device that has enjoyed a very positive reception: the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Let’s see how it got on.

Display

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 features, unsurprisingly, a 10.1-inch TFT display that operates at a resolution of 800 x 1280 and the screen is just about as impressive as you’d expect from Samsung. It may not rival the company’s Super AMOLED products but you’ll be hard pushed to find anything to dislike about the Galaxy Tab 10.1′s display. It’s big, responsive and is great for watching HD content or web browsing.

The Flyer however, only offers a 7-inch screen, operating at a resolution of 600 x 1024, which HTC claim will make the device altogether more mobile than its competitors. Performance-wise the display’s solid enough, colours look vivid and blacks deep, but the lack of space does prove to be a hindrance at times and the small-size sometimes gives you the feeling that you might be better off with a large screened smartphone, which you can slip into a pocket. We have no major complaints though.

Winner – Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Power

The HTC Flyer may feature a small screen but it doesn’t lack in the engine room and the single-core 1.5GHz CPU is a beast, it chomps through tasks super speedily and the 1GB of installed RAM help matters along nicely.

Samsung opted to go down the dual-core route with the Galaxy Tab 10.1, packing a 1GHz chip into the device, which takes care of multi-tasking without skipping a beat. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 also offers 1GB RAM too, making it a fast, well provisioned machine indeed.

While the Samsung weighs-in heavier with the dual-core, we’re pretty fond of the higher clocked chip of the Flyer too, and let’s not forget, Android isn’t 100% ready for dual-core just yet, so we’re happy to call this one a draw..for now.

Winner – Draw

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This time the HTC Desire S takes on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

We compare the HTC Desire S to Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Arc.

Form:

HTC Desire S – 115 x 59.8 x 11.6 mm, 130 g

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc – 125 x 63 x 8.7 mm, 117 g

The HTC Desire S doesn’t really stand out that much in the current smartphone market. Nor does it look very different from the majority of other HTC handsets, but in each case this is not necessarily a bad thing.

There’s something to be said for the elegant simplicity of the Desire S, something HTC seem to consistently get right, with smartphones at least.

The Desire S is thin, sleek and professional-looking with that HTC minimalist style and slightly rounded (though not overdone) corners bucking the trend for the angular.

Sony’s device is a completely different ball game, like the rest of the Xperia range, each is different and distinguished from each other and they’re very much attention seekers in the wider world of mobile tech too.

The clue is in the name for the Arc, with the whole handset curving along its back panel in the palm of your hand.

At the front it’s very straight and angular and very clean looking, while the back is a peculiar but effective mix of curves and angles, there’s some chrome trim but it’s tastefully done and actually suits the overall bombastic visuals of the device quite well.

We think the silhouette of the Xperia Arc from any angle looks fantastic, it looks like it shouldn’t work but it simply does.

The Desire S looks average and ‘okay’, but the Xperia Arc really is something exceptional and very special indeed when it comes to design, if only all smartphones were so interesting to look at.

Winner – Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

Display:

HTC has, funnily enough, opted for Sony technology for the Desire S’ display with a 3.7-inch S-LCD capacitive touchscreen which is reinforced with toughened Gorilla Glass.

The display comes in at a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels and 252 dots-per-inch (dpi). The Desire S has multi-touch input as well as an accelerometer and comes preloaded with the HTC Sense user interface (UI).

The Xperia Arc boasts a larger screen than the Desire S at 4.2-inches, it’s an LED-backlit LCD capacitive touchscreen at 480 x 854 pixels and 233 dpi.

The Arc’s display has a scratch-resistant surface and features multi-touch input and an accelerometer. This curved handset also has the Sony Mobile Bravia engine and Timescape UI pre-installed.

Quite a tricky one to call, we prefer the larger screen size of the Arc and it also has a slightly higher resolution. However, the Desire S has the upper hand with a higher dpi rating for a sharper picture and the S-LCD screen technology offering better power economy as well as enhanced brightness and colours.

We think the Desire S will offer the most satisfying display quality overall.

Winner – HTC Desire S

Storage:

Storage on the Desire S is not what we would describe as fantastic, it’s got 1.1 GB of ROM for internal capacity which is acceptable but nothing to write home about, meanwhile on the RAM side of things it has 768 MB, which is rather good. Micro SD is supported for cards up to 32 GB.

The Arc isn’t great in this area either with a mere 320 MB of onboard storage space, RAM is decent enough at 512 MB though it comes in behind the Desire S. Card support is the same as the HTC and the Arc includes an 8GB Micro SD card as part of the package.

Neither handset provides as much storage as we would like but of the two the Desire comes out better with more RAM and more internal memory for your contacts, apps and multimedia.

Winner – HTC Desire S

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Sony’s Xperia Play takes on Apple’s iPhone 4

We take a look to see how the iPhone 4 stacks up when compared to the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play.

Form:

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play – 119 x 62 x 16 mm, 175 g

Apple iPhone 4 – 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm, 137 g

The iPhone 4 looks like an iPhone, strange as it might seem, it may be a thinner, stripped down version but it’s still got Apple’s distinctive iDevice signature style.

Some might be tired of it, some might even think of it as Marmite with the extremes of love or loathe, but with the way similarly styled phones have taken off across the industry, there’s something to be said for the idea that squared-off ‘slab’ like handsets are innately appealing to the human eye. It just sort of works, really.

Sony Ericsson has been far more experimental with its flashy gaming handset. It’s still a slab but it’s got both extra angles and extra curves all over the place, but the effect of this is a good one.

The device knows it’s intended role as a fun gaming phone and it’s not going to make any apologies for it with its chrome trim, interesting shapes and brushed metal game pad which slides out from underneath.

It’s a bulky piece of kit though being considerably heavier and thicker than the iPhone and most other current phones in fact.

While the Apple looks nice and is something of a trend-setter we find the adventurous styling of the Xperia Play more commendable. The added bulk, however, is not ideal and if you like your phones thin and light the iPhone is probably a better bet.

Winner – Draw

Display:

Apple’s iPhone 4 Retina display is often a yardstick by which other smartphone displays are measured.

The iPhone 4’s display comes in at 640 x 960 pixels and 326 dots-per-inch (dpi), it’s also been given a scratch-resistant and oleophobic surface, meaning it repels the oils from fingerprints.

The package is rounded out with multi-touch input, accelerometer and gyro sensors.

Sony’s Xperia Play also uses an LED-backlit display, this one is a 4-inch LCD capacitive touchscreen at 244 dpi and with a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels.

The phone comes loaded with the Timescape user interface (UI) and features multi-touch and accelerometer sensors.

As a heavily gaming-oriented phone it features a distinctive slide-out control pad in a brushed metal finish, which will be instantly recognisable to PlayStation users.

There’s a good reason why the iPhone 4’s screen is so often referred to when analysing smartphone displays – it really is an excellent bit of display technology.

Tthe quality of the Retina display is great and along with a high resolution and very high dpi it providesnear perfect visuals.

Winner – Apple iPhone 4

Storage:

Sony has given the Xperia Play 400MB of internal storage capacity along with 512 MB of RAM. Micro SD is supported up to 32 GB and an 8 GB card is supplied with the handset.

Apple has been a bit more generous on storage with 16GB and 32GB variants available, both of which share the same 512 MB of RAM as the Xperia Play.

Disappointingly, there is still no card support on this latest iPhone, which is a bit of a limitation.

It’s a fairly easy win for the iPhone here with a higher minimum and maximum storage capacity.

But the lack of card support does hamper versatility. Nonetheless, in the end we think high internal capacity is most important.

Winner – Apple iPhone 4

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