Nokia today launched a couple of new N series multimedia phones, including the candy-bar N79 (above right), which the company is holding up as the smallest N series model so far. The Finnish phone maker also launched the N85 (above left), an update of sorts to the popular N82 multimedia phone.

As with other N series phones, the N85 comes with a 5-megapixel lens with Carl Zeiss optics and LED flash, as well as A-GPS to help you find your way around town. It also lets users geo-tag their pictures, an increasingly useful tool in these social networking-mad times.

The N79, which is thinner (but still pretty thick when put next to an HTC Touch Diamond or Samsung Soul), also has much of the same features, including the 5-meg camera and A-GPS.
…

As the hype from the 3G iPhone rests a little, the spotlight has now been trained on two “iPhone killers” these past two weeks – the Samsung Omnia and HTC’s Touch Diamond, which went on sale lately.

The Omnia, which went on shelves last weekend, costs almost identical to the Touch, about $500 to $600 with a no-frills two-year plan (check prices at singtelshop.com, m1shop.com.sg, and starhub.com).

If you add that $100 incentive voucher from, say StarHub Hubbing, or M1 loyalty vouchers, and throw in a trade-in phone for $200, that’s a brand new full-featured phone for under $300. Good deal!

So, how do the two stack up? Early looks suggest:

Round 1: UI
Winner: A tie. Both have touch-sensitive screens. Samsung have haptics, which means you know when you press on a button on-screen. HTC, meanwhile has its prettier TouchFlo 3D, which really wows the socks off people.

Round 2: Looks
Winner: HTC, for a really pocketable size, and the better-looking finish. Samsung’s not bad too, but it looks too much like an iPhone.

Round 3: Specs
Winner: Samsung, for having handy GPS (and the superior Agis maps), and a whopping 16GB of memory. That’s enough for my 13GB – and growing – bunch of MP3s! If the HTC has more than its 4GB of memory built in, it might just tip the scales in its favour.

Round 4: Screen
Winner: It’s a tie again. I really prefer the sharpness of HTC’s excellent VGA screen. For old geeks, you’ll remember that VGA (640×480 pixels) is the resolution we used to have on our old 14-inch CRT monitors. Now we have it on a small screen, that’s why it’s super fine! Why is it a tie then? Simply because the Samsung screen is bigger – it makes pictures and particularly 16×9 videos much more watchable.

Early verdict: It’s tie, but it’s not because I don’t want to stick my neck out. I thought I was sold on the HTC Touch Diamond, after I got less-than-enthusiastic with the Samsung demo at CommunicAsia. But today, over lunch, the Samsung folks passed some of us in the media retail sets of the Omnia, and they seemed to zip along a little faster on the UI, making me think about that 16GB onboard again.

If you have to buy one of these phones this weekend, here’s my suggestion: Get the HTC if you use it more as a phone and less as a multimedia powerhouse (coz it is more pocketable for the weekend and not everyone needs 16GB of memory). Get the Omnia if you want all-out multimedia on the go (if you like everything in one gizmo).

Otherwise, look out for the review in Digital Life next Tuesday. No, it’s not a smart ploy to get you to read ST, but simply because I haven’t fully reviewed the phones yet to form a better verdict!

It’s the latest sign that the “touch-screen” fad is heating up to fever pitch, thanks in much to the iPhone hype.

HTC’s excellent Touch Diamond, said to be the best “iPhone killer” of the lot, is sold out everywhere, including many telco shops.

Last Friday, the Plaza Singapura shop at StarHub was sold out (customer service officer said there was a queue of 80 people who have pre-ordered it). Then over the weekend, when the ads came out again, the phone was sold out everywhere soon enough too!

The M1 e-shop didn’t have it (even when I tried to renew my contract and was ready to click “submit”). StarHub certainly didn’t have it in many of its shops, and I’m wondering if finally SingTel does have some stock (given that it’s bet so much on the iPhone instead).

Is the iPhone really going to sway people in this number port game? With its delay here (SingTel won’t get the first batch of July 11 3G iPhones), it looks like people are probably busy signing up on contracts with the HTC phone instead.

A mini price war seems to have appeared between StarHub and M1 too. At the PC Show, the phone was snapped up for under $500. This week, StarHub has it under $400 (for medium and high plans).

And I am still undecided which one to go – M1 or StarHub. It will depend on who has stock for the HTC Touch Diamond. This is one gizmo which has most of the nifty “touch” stuff on the iPhone – without the annoying hoopla.