Battle of the smartphone user interfaces

The Acer UI also includes Acer's album which is an HTC TouchFLO-like interface for viewing your photos, although it's not as smooth as HTC's alternative.

Toshiba

Although Toshiba's Windows Mobile UI is only currently available on the rather sub-standard Toshiba TG01, it's an attractive design based on three animated stripes that change function as you swipe your finger across the screen.

Like other UIs, you can use your finger to scroll through menus, scrapping the need for a stylus, at least on the homescreen.

The stripes include Settings, Applications and Today. Simply swipe up one of these strips to access the full sub menu.

The clock is always displayed at the top of the screen, so you'll know what time it is whichever homescreen you're currently on, although again this can be changed to the information screen where you can view emails and SMS messages, the task manager, a redesigned calendar or clock by tapping to the left of it.

Toshiba's interface is colourful and attractive, although it still exposes a lot of the Windows interface.

Samsung

Samsung's Touchwiz interface has been used on almost all high-end Java-based Samsung devices for some time now, but now it's made the transition to smartphones, too.

The Omnia II is just one of the devices that uses Touchwiz with Windows 6.5.

It works the same as Touchwiz on non-smartphones, with a panel to the left of the screen full of widgets. Simply drag and drop these onto the main body of the homescreen and you can fire them up from by tapping on them.