10 best stylish and lightweight phones

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	Home / Cell phones / Stylish and lightweight phones

	10 best stylish and lightweight phones	By Sindre Lia, 24 September 2007

Verizon Wireless sells a music-ready Motorola V9m for $450; who said shopping for stylish and lightweight phones was easy?

Finally, we can kiss goodbye to stylish and lightweight phones coming with 2 hours of talk time, VGA cameras and poor displays. With the introduction of multimedia smartphones such as Apple's iPhone and Nokia's U.S. HSDPA networking N95, the category of high-end multimedia phones needs to find a new niche. Stylish and lightweight phones; that seems like a nice fit.

Typically coming with 4 hours of talk time, 2-megapixel cameras and excellent displays, new phones such as the Motorola V9m, LG VX8550 and Samsung SGH-A727 will give a new meaning to trivial communication. Beware of their shiny new "multimedia stickers" though, as the only way to reach true multimedia nirvana requires walking down the "multimedia smartphones and data plans" path.

The price levels of the new breed of stylish and lightweight phones vary a lot, but if you find a deal between $50 and $150 plus calling plan; it's a good deal. Some of these phones (V9m, especially) are also fairly new, so it may be worth waiting a few months until they get a serious price drop before you go shopping. Also, we don't recommend signing up for an expensive data plan with these phones, so multimedia use should be limited to USB transfers (if, you're lucky to find the proprietary cable needed) of music and some light mobile Internet browsing.

At the top of our chart we find Sprint's new Motorola V9m; a phone we had initially hoped would be a multimedia powerhouse. However, it mainly impressed with good looks, great calling and messaging performance, as well as great battery life and two QVGA displays (external and internal). Its web browser also loads even the most complicated web pages, and keeps them looking clean. Surprisingly, Sprint also includes a 256Mb microSD card, which isn't large nowadays, but large enough for us to recognize that the carrier is finally on the move here.

In second place, T-Mobile's Motorola Z3 hangs in there with its included 128MB memory card. This phone also impresses with both great calling and messaging features as well as good battery life. And with a price tag of $50, the choice may be easy.

Verizon Wireless has managed to place its own version of the V9m on third place, due to some great specifications provided by the phone itself. As expected, VZW has skipped including a memory card altogether, hoping that you'll shell out an extra $200 for a 4GB microSD card and a pair of Motorola S9 headphones. Given the iPhone now costs $400, we don't see how a music-ready V9m can be worth $450.

In fourth place, another VZW phone appears in the LG VX8550. As an unlocked phone, we're pretty sure the VX8550 could have snagged a top spot on our music phone chart, but after a good session with Verizon Wireless' technical team, there's just something that doesn't feel right about this phone. Still, if you're looking for a fancy slider on CDMA bands, this is the phone for you.

A seriously old phone, the Motorola RAZR V3t, holds the fifth place on our chart. It comes with a 128MB card and offers great messaging and calling capabilities. If you're a fan of the RAZR design, and need a RAZR-phone right away, you'll get this one for $100 at T-Mobile. Or, you can pay $30 for a RAZR V3m on Sprint. Or, you can pay an extra $220 for a 0.08 inches thinner RAZR2. Hellomoto!