At last, a phone I like. Anything that comes in day-glo orange and has a 100db alarm that makes the phone flash the word, “help” in bright orange letters on it has got to be worth buying. It almost reminds me of what I would expect the Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy to look like. A nice friendly orange and the helpful word, HELP plastered on it.

For one thing it’s big – I like big in a phone. A range of colors to satisfy just about any one, built-in GPS and “high waterproof efficiency.” I am not quite sure exactly what that means – is it waterproof or not? In the promo photos, the phones are scattered with a few genteel drops of water rather than submerged in a bucket, so I’m guessing it means, “water resistant.”

Anyway, it looks as though the designers actually had some fun with this one and I especially like the enormous rubber ring that triggers the alarm and is billed as a “crime prevention buzzer.” Love it.

Other features include a 2.7-inch color display, a four-level brightness LED, and a 1.3 megapixel CMOS camera with auto focus. This is going to be the go-to phone next year, mark my words.

Yet another phone release just in time for Christmas. Nokia have just announced their latest addition via T-Mobile. The new, folding 6263 includes a 1.3 megapixel camera, e-mail capability and a music player. Are you asleep yet?

First thing, we are surprised at the stinginess of the camera’s capabilities. 1.3 megapixels? I guess they must have had a bunch of parts left over from a previous release and decided to use them up on this one. You would think there are enough low quality, out of focus, poor resolution photographs floating around as is. Just for a moment I imagined all those photos actually being printed on paper and wonder just exactly how many of them would go straight in the trash the moment the photographer saw them – scary. I had a 6267 ( the European model this has been downgraded from ) for a while and wasn’t impressed.

Anyway, the 6263 has all the usual features: Bluetooth capability, a 2 inch screen guaranteed to damage your eyesight and nowhere near enough memory (it comes with 512MB standard so you have to upgrade to 4 GB if you want a decent music library). According to Frank Vium, vice president of sales for Nokia, “We are excited to be working with T-Mobile to bring this compelling blend of fun and function to customers across the country.”

I can almost feel the excitement from here. If you are interested in finding out more about how excited Mr. Vium is, the press release is here.

At last, someone has made a phone for those of us who are, “hard,” on our technological advances.

The Sonim XP1 is certified capable of withstanding extreme environmental conditions – water, wind, dirt, dust and extreme temperatures.

According to the makers, Sonim, the XP1 works perfectly in harsh temperatures, doesn’t die when exposed to the elements, can be dropped, kicked, tossed into a toolbox or backpack, seen and heard in bright/dark and noisy conditions, and provides reliable voice, push-to-talk and data services.

I can’t speak to the extreme temperatures, but I can say it is waterproof and capable of taking the kind of knocks that would have a LG chocolate owner scurrying back to the dealership.

The XP1 comes in a range of colors for the fashion conscious amongst us, although it’s nit going to win any awards for svelte styling. But I don’t care – it comes with a three year unconditional warranty and a lifetime warranty on the casing. OK, it doesn’t have all the latest bells and whistles, but it looks like a phone and works like a phone and at the end of the day, that’s all some of us want – a phone.

Sonim has a more detailed list of features on their website here.

And Amazon have a range of accessories for the XP1 :

Two displays? That is correct, the Motorola RAZR2 V9 on offer from AT&T has a large external screen (2 inches wide), allowing you to scroll through music libraries, adjust the volume, skip and pause tracks and also use the built-in camera. Once the phone is opened, there is an even larger screen on the inside, (2.2 inches)

On top of the usual cell phone features, the RAZR2 has a dedicated Opera browser key allowing access to the internet and another for cellular video.

It’s an extremely attractive phone and slightly better equipped than the V9m versions available from Sprint and Verizon. It’s slightly thicker than the others’ version, but makes up for that by featuring “Crystal Talk,” which uses noise-canceling technology to improve the call quality.

For me, the Motorloa RAZR2 V9 is perhaps the best clamshell available at the moment – it’s expensive, but you get what you pay for. Great design, simple user interface and as-good-as-it-gets-on-a-cellphone web surfing. Combined with extremely high voice quality and loads of multi media content, it’s hard to beat . I like it and the only issue I have, as usual is the button sizes, but it’s tiny, so that’s to be expected.

Verizon has just announced the introduction of the “Chocolate” by LG in Blue Ice with the tagline, “As Cool as it is Sweet.” Which is not a bit tongue-in-cheek on their part, in fact, they are deadly serious which leads me to suspect sales of this particular model have not gone as well as hoped. Why else make such a fuss of introducing a new color? The Press release is here.

The LG Chocolate or KG800, is a fairly well respected phone, the sound quality is higher than average and it’s a good looker.

Small, although LG didn’t manage to get it less than 10mm thick a la Armani phone. Guess they just weren’t trying hard enough. It got good reviews around the various gadget sites when it was launched and British site techdigest even managed to pinch one at the release party back in May last year.

The appealing thing about this one, is the styling, although, along with the iPhone, the addition of a piece of plate glass on the front is bound to cause a few problems when using the phone on a day-to-day basis.

I am still a little underwhelmed at the fact that there’s a new color phone on the market, but if you like this one there are lots of colors available from Amazon at a good price.