The hype seems to be on what new features and technology smart-phones will come out with next (we’re looking at you, Apple). There is a whole additional side to more traditional phones with unique designs like your favorite cartoon characters, automobiles, and even drinks. Check out these 12 (questionably) awesome/ so-bad-they’re-good novelty phones:

1. 1967 Shelby Mustang Phone – Have you ever dreamed about having an old-fashioned mustang? Well maybe buying the actual car isn’t practical, but this 1967 Ford Mustang is a great collector’s item that is also useful as a phone.

2. Winebottle Shaped Telephone – For the lovers of wine and elegance, this novelty phone is a great addition, especially for a kitchen where it can serve as a phone and a classy wine bottle on the counter.

3. The King, Elvis Phone – Very few go down in history like the late great king of rock and roll. This phone is a great collector’s piece for lovers of oldies and rock.

4. TV mobile phone – Though a little old fashioned, this device is a hybrid between mobile phone and television. The screen folds out to a comfortable viewing angle to watch videos – something many smartphones today seem to neglect in their design.

5. Audi TT Cell Phone – This phone may not have all the fancy features of a smart phone, but it looks awesome and is great for Audi lovers.

6. Darth Vader Phone – With the force at your side, you can contact anyone on this Star Wars novelty phone. Even if the series isn’t your favorite, a Darth Vader Phone is about as cool as it gets.

7. NFL NY Giants Football Phone – Sports fans love to get their favorite team on everything like t-shirts, hats, chairs, and even phones. This phone has the whole football field on the side and the actual football design on the top and bottom.

8. Animated Homer Simpson Phone – For adult cartoon fans, this Homer Simpson phone is a great novelty phone for your home while it entertains with its voice and movements for incoming calls.

9. Harley-Davidson Phone – This Harley-Davidson phone comes with motorcycle seats that lift up for use as a handset, how cool is that?

10. Telemania Tel-locomotive – This rather unique novelty phone has four distinctive sounds when it rings. It has an old-fashioned look and represents a 1925 Crescent Locomotive.

11. Telemania Hot Lips in Red – This phone makes for a hilarious gift.

12. M&M’s 2 Character Phone – This phone will make one hungry just by looking at it. It is a cool Christmas phone with the red and green M&Ms but might just make you eat more candy.

This list of scarily kitsch design was compiled by Oli, a design and gadget obsessive at Thorpe Breaks – who are eagerly gearing up for this Halloween’s fright night.

Apple launched the iPhone 5 on its website on the 14th September, taking pre-orders for its range of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models that were originally due to be available on the 21st September. The phones are being sold sim-free on their website for £529 for the 16GB model, £599 for the 32GB model and £699 for their ultimate phone with 64GB. The website was inundated with orders to the point where the phone had sold out of available stock within a short time of the site opening. The Senior Vice President of Apple’s worldwide marketing, Phillip Schiller commented that:

“iPhone 5 pre-orders have shattered the previous record held by the iPhone 4S and the customer response to iPhone 5 has been phenomenal.”

The iPhone 5 has a new larger 4-inch screen with an aluminium back casing which replaces the original Gorilla Glass and is just 7.6mm thick making it 18% thinner than the iPhone 4S. It is lighter too and weighs just 118grams which is 20% lighter than the 4S. All of these design features make the phone stylish and sleek and the phone runs on Apple’s latest operating system, iOS 6 which will see the addition of new apps.

The main providers have also released their iPhone 5 contract prices:

T-Mobile is offering the phone for £41 month on a two year contract which gives you unlimited minutes, texts and internet. In addition you’ll also have to pay an upfront phone cost of £49 for the 16GB, £149 for the 32GB or £219 for the 64GB. They are offering a range of tariffs to suit whether you want to pay a higher upfront phone cost, or higher monthly contract cost.

To get an unlimited package on Orange will cost you £51 per month which includes a free 16GB iPhone 5. An upfront phone fee of £39.99 will upgrade you to the 32GB model or £129 will upgrade you to the 64GB model.

On Vodafone you can get the iPhone 5 16GB on their Red plan which offers unlimited calls, texts and 2GB of internet for £47 per month which includes a free phone or for £42 per month with an upfront phone cost of £49. The upfront cost jumps to £149 for the 32GB model or £229 for the 64GB model. Again, they are offering a range of tariffs which do not offer the unlimited bundle which are available from £33 per month for the 16GB model but with a higher upfront phone cost of £149.

Given that the iPhone 5 has the ability to work on 4G networks which will provide very fast internet access; it is thought that contracts with both Orange and T-Mobile will prove popular as these are the companies that are owned by Everything Everywhere who won the rights to use the 4G LTE network ahead of its rivals.

Apple has had to delay delivery times by around two weeks in the UK for the iPhone 5 as they have been struggling to manufacture sufficient global stocks of the phone prior to launch. The problem is thought to be down to the manufacture of the phones taller screens by Sharp, where production is believed to be slower than originally anticipated and hence is holding up the assembly of the complete units which is undertaken in China.

If you’re still desperate to get your hands on your own iPhone 5 on the day of launch and don’t want to wait another two weeks, we recommend an early start followed by joining the queues that we’re sure will be forming outside Apple stores before they open on the 21st September.

Phone size and weight

Given that the iPhone weighs in at just 112 grams this phone is certainly a lot lighter than the Lumia 920 which weighs 185 grams, so if this is an important consideration for you, the iPhone 5 wins hands down with its stylish design. The phone is just 7.6mm thick compared with 10.7mm for the Lumia; not a huge difference, but enough for the iPhone to feel comfortable and sleek when being held.

Phone display

Apple phone lovers will find the iPhone 5’s larger screen size great for watching video, reading emails and playing games, but at just 4-inches Apple seem to have ignored the trend for larger screen sizes, something that Nokia has embraced with the Lumia’s 4.5-inch screen. Not only is the Lumia 920 screen size larger but it also delivers a better quality display of 1280 x 768 pixels compared with 1136 x 640 pixels on the iPhone 5.

Processor

Comparing the processors at this stage is a bit difficult until the two phones can be compared side by side. Apple’s iPhone 5 contains an A6 processor which is thought to be faster than those previously found in the iPhone 4 and 4S. The Lumia 920 will use a dual core Snapdragon processor delivering 1.5GHz which is thought to deliver broadly similar processing speeds to that of the iPhone 5.

Camera

Although Apple have improved their phone’s camera specification in terms of how it captures photos in low light conditions and a faster f/2.4 shutter speed, it has still retained the 8 megapixel camera that was seen in its predecessor, the iPhone 4S. As good as all this sounds, it is still difficult to compete with the photo quality that you can obtain using the Lumia 920’s PureView technology. The phone will come with an 8.7MP camera with optical stabilisation and an f/2.0 shutter speed. Both phones have secondary cameras and once again the Nokia’s camera beats the iPhone 5, having a 1.3MP camera compared to a 720p.

Battery

If you need a phone with a battery that won’t let you down when you may need it most, it’s safe to say that the iPhone 5 which is expected to deliver the same talk-time as the 4S can easily be bettered by a range of other smartphones. The Lumia 920 beats this easily with its 2000 mAh battery which Nokia claims will give you ten hours of talk-time whilst on 3G.

Memory

The iPhone 5 has been launched with Apple’s standard internal storage options of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, compared to the Lumia’s single option of 32GB. So if you can be a bit heavy on your memory needs, the iPhone 5 64GB option may be the best for you, although 32GB is usually ample for the average smartphone owner.

Operating system

Based on reviews and expectations released so far, it seems that many doubt how great the Windows Phone 8 operating system will be and until it’s been launched it is difficult to speculate further, but it has a hard act to follow as Apple has gained an excellent reputation for their operating systems which provide a quality range of apps and offer a smooth and effortless ease of use.

Connectivity

The iPhone 5 and the Lumia 920 both have the capability to use the 4G LTE spectrum, so when this service is launched in the UK later this year by T-Mobile and Orange, both phones will be able to give you fast download speeds. The Lumia 920 also has NFC built in which provides you with the potential to use your phone for contactless payment, something which Apple failed to build into their phone.

Pricing

The iPhone 5 price ranges from £529 for the 16GB model up to £699 for the 64GB model and even though prices for the Lumia 920 have yet to be released; it is widely expected to be cheaper than its 32GB Apple rival.

Summary

The iPhone 5 wins the battle if you want a light-weight, sleek styled phone with a great operating system, but the screen size, display quality, cameras and battery are all superior on the Lumia 920 which is widely expected to cost less to buy and is therefore the phone offering better value. As with all phone comparisons, the right phone for you comes down to what features are most important to you, what you can afford and ultimately comes down to personal preference.

The new handset is, apparently, 18% thinner than it’s predecessor which is a noticeable change. Combined with the fact that it features a larger screen than the 4S (with the actual body width remaining the same) the iPhone 5 will surely appeal to those looking for a more, erm, mobile mobile! It is also about 20% lighter than the iPhone 4S.

One of the biggest problems that users have been facing as smartphones get smarter and able to do more and more tasks is that battery life is drained increasingly more quickly. This is an area of huge importance for phone manufacturers and Apple are no different. With the iPhone 5 they have addressed this issue and have equipped it with a more energy efficient battery. Apple claim that there’s up to 10 hours of video playback, up to 8 hours of talk time and up to 8 hours of browsing on one charge.

The 5 is running on a brand new A6 chip that, claim Apple, does pretty much everything twice as fast as the A5 chip. In practice this should mean near instantaneous web page loading and email attachment opening. The A6 chip also boasts graphics performance that is nearly twice as fast as the A5. This will deliver smoother gaming through higher frame rates. All in all, everything should happen faster and smoother than ever before.

And while you’re enjoying the speed at which everything is happening on your new iPhone you will no doubt be amazed by the Retina display. The pixels are dense! There are 326 pixels per inch and this means that the naked eye can’t distinguish between one pixel and another. This basically means that images you view on the iPhone 5 will be clearer and more lifelike than ever before. And with a 44% increase in colour saturation from the iPhone 4S those games and apps that you will be enjoying (with the superfast A6 chip, don’t forget) will appear brighter, more colourful and more impressive than ever before. You can also watch HD video in widescreen. Who needs a TV?

But what about the sound quality whilst viewing these HD videos or playing on these super-colourful games? Well, Apple have had a think about that too. They have, they say, tested their new Apple EarPods (earphones) out on hundreds of different ears and have come up with a design that sits comfortably inside any ear. And when inputting sound there are a few new improvements too. There are 3 microphones, yes 3, on the iPhone 5. One on the front, one on the back and one on the bottom. They work together to target sound and focus on it to reduce background noise. They have new noise-cancelling technology inside the phone too to ensure that even in a noisy environment you can hear the person on the other end of the line.

What if photography is your thing? The iSight camera is still a part of the iPhone and it has gotten even better. There’s a great new panorama feature that allows the budding David Bailey in you to shoot a photograph up to 240 degrees! So the next time you have that enormous family photo you needn’t arrange everyone in separate groups, just line them up and let rip! There’s also the option to shoot HD video with up to 10 face recognition. And whilst shooting the video you can still take still shots. There’s no longer any excuse for missing those important events in your life.

Where I believe Apple have made a big mistake is in changing their connector from the 30-pin that has been around since they launched the iPhone in 2007 to the new Lightning connector. Yes the new Lightning connector may be quicker, yes it may be reversible and yes, it may be more durable. But, and this is a big but, you need to buy an adapter to use any of your old products with the iPhone 5, such as in-car chargers, car cradles etc

With the already high price of the handset and price plans I’m not sure that users will be happy with the added cost of buying an adapter. Time will tell. And with Samsung really upping the stakes with their new Galaxy S3 there is some genuine competition in the smartphone market. Those recycling their mobile phones have quite a decision on their hands. Good luck to them.

1. Turn down your screen brightness. The default setting for the brightness of the screen is pretty high on the iPhone 4S and the brighter the screen, the more juice your phone uses, so if you turn down the brightness even a small amount you’ll be saving power.

2. Turn off WiFi. If you have WiFi on all the time your phone is constantly searching for an open WiFi network to try and connect to so only have it turned when you are using the interent directly.

3. Turn off GPS and Location Features. The iPhone has built in GPS which means that it knows where you are at all times and can give you info about your local area whenever you need it. But it does use a lot of battery power to do this so only turn on GPS when you plan to use it immediately and then turn it off after you’ve found what you need. Also its a good idea to turn off ‘Setting Time Zone’ function as this means that your phone is constantly assessing which zone you are in when travelling. It’s not hard to change the time manually as you move through different time zones and saves battery power.

4. Change email checking settings. You can choose how often your phone accesses your network to check for new mail. If your phone is doing it every 5 minutes then it will be using a lot of battery so set it to check once an hour, or set it to manual so that your tell your phone when to check.

5. Sleep sooner. You can decide how after how long your phone will ‘Auto Lock’- go to sleep after not being used or not pressing any buttons. The quicker your phone sleeps the more juice it will save so put your Auto-Lock settings to one or two minutes.

6. Think about what you’re using. Some features use battery more than others so, if it’s important that your phone lasts out, don’t watch films, use the internet too much or play games. These are things that drain your battery a lot so use your phone wisely. Battery life depletes as your phone gets older so make sure you recycle your mobile phone and get upgrades when you can so you’ll never be stuck without your best friend!

Absolute Fitness aims to help you keep track of your daily food, nutrient and calorie consumption along with your fitness goals and weight too. It is a great app that will provide you with a range of graphs to help keep you motivated and on track.

If running, cycling, walking or hiking are your preferred choice of exercise downloading My Tracks is a must as it will help you keep a record of not only the route followed but also the time taken, distance travelled, the elevation of the route using the GPS sensor in your phone. If you’d like to share this information online you can also do this through link-ups with a range of social networking sites.

If you’re a more experienced runner or cyclist but feel in need of a bit of extra motivation, we recommend the Noom CardioTrainer and Racing app as not only will it record all the standard stats that you’d expect from a fitness app, but it also has a race simulator mode where a voice will let you know what position you are in a virtual race.

The most well-known sports and fitness tracker for Android smartphones is Endomondo Sports Tracker which is available to download from Google Play for £2.64. It is the highest rated app of this type which is down to its ease of use, reliability, features and the ease with which you can share your information on social networking sites and with over 9 million downloads to date, you can be sure that it lives up to the claims its makes.

All Sport GPS is one of the best Free Fitness Android Apps to download and offers all the functionality and social media data sharing that you’d expect. If you own an iPhone, this is also available to download from the iTunes App Store too.

If you’re trying really hard to stay on track with your healthy eating and fitness goals, an app that may come in really useful is the Fast Food Calorie Counter. The app details the calorie and nutritional information of over nine thousand menu items from over 73 fast food restaurants, so if you find yourself in a restaurant with a friend or if you just really fancy a treat, you can select an item that will satisfy you but won’t undo all your good work.

With all this technology available to help you stay on track, why not download a few Fitness Android Apps

 to help you reach your fitness and diet goals.

The phone comes running the much-heralded Windows Phone 7.5, a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 like the majority of other Windows Phone handsets on the market, a Super AMOLED 4in screen with a 800 x 480 pixels resolution, Wi-Fi, a 1500mAh battery, microUSB, BT, GPS, a five megapixel camera with flash and a front facing VGA camera. Unfortunately, this impressive spec is let down by the storage capacity available: only 384MB RAM and 4GB of storage.

To sweeten the deal, howver, Samsung has thrown in a few goodies; like its own family network known as Family Story as well as ChatON, its communication service which acts like a video-audio-text instant messaging platform. There is also AllShare, MusicHub, Smart DJ and Windows SkyDrive to play around with.

It’s probably a good job that Windows SkyBrive is included; considering the storage issues. A recent press release says that users will get 25GB, although everyone is suspecting that it will be 7GB as this is the standard quota free Skydrive users usually get.

The Samsung Omnia M will have a very tough time against the HTC Radar or the Nokia Lumia 710 which are both superior smartphones with more on-board memory and more storage capacity.

Other Samsung models in a similar performance bracket include the Samsung Omnia 7 and Omnia W.

Get set for a new Notes application that puts Apple’s stock Notes application to shame? Not only is the ‘Just Type’ application abosulutely stunning to look at, but it is also completely free in the iOS App Store! Fitting the Apple model of slick aesthetic, everything about the application screams: “made with love”. Everything right down to the application’s icon looks superb and makes you want to use it for no other reason other than it looks lovely.

The Just Type iPhone App application features everything Apple’s stock Notes application has and can pride itself on offering much more than just an eye-candy interface. Top-notch functionality still remains at the heart of this lovely looking, the application includes features such as several different fonts, the ability to alter the font size, bolding your text, colour-coating the notes, and much more.

Also within the application is an action button at the bottom of the interface that allows you to do any of the following with whatever you type into the application:

•E-mail as attachment

•Message (SMS)

•Print text

•Copy text to clipboard

Along with the text formatting options, share options, and colour options, there is also a delete button which is no surprise on a Notes app.

From the central section of the application you can find all of the notes you have created. You will be able to see many similarities in the design to the S

Google’s latest product, the Nexus 7 tablet, gives Apple’s iPad a wide berth and is looking set to be going after Amazon’s Kindle device ; trying to persuade its users to watch films and read books on a smaller screen and on a more compact device.

This Google Nexus is functional and easy to use. Google look to be trying to mop up the mid-range tablet users: those who don’t yearn for the latest technology but feel hurried along to get the gadget everyone’s talking about. Its screen is excellent (1280×800 is passable HD), its battery life is also exceptional lasting a marathon nine hours. The Nexus is powered by an advanced quad-core 1.3GHz processor which responds instinctively to the touch, something which has not always been true of Google devices.

The software is also the best Google has ever made, but this is a media feeding device more than anything else. So yes, Jelly Bean offers a host of features that utilise Google’s search capabilities to provide signed-in users to instant access on, for instance, the time back home if they’re travelling, or the weather and local sport scores if they’re not. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen brings up this ‘Google Now’ stack of cards, but in fact it’s renting films or buying books that the firm hopes will happen most.

Shuffling around the all-important apps and widgets has been made easier than ever on this new Google Nexus, although it’s fairly safe to say that this tablet is not aimed at the serial tinkerers and tech enthusiasts, it’s much more likely that this device will appeal to those making their first tentative forays into the tablet market. That being said, it does still have a few nifty tricks up its sleeve: there’s a front-facing camera for video calls and also an improved dictation and voice activation system.

Software : Android 4.1 Jellybean

Processor : 1.3GHz quad-core NVidia Tegra 3

Memory: 1GB

Storage: 8GB/16GB; no expansion slots

Display : 7″ backlit IPS capacitive touchscreen, 1280×800 pixels

Connectivity : Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0

Ports : Micro USB, 3.5mm headphone jack

Camera : 1.2 megapixel front-facing

Battery : Li-ion 4325mAh

Size : 199x120x10mm

Weight : 340g

The Korean consumer electronics giants have been greedily slurping up the majority share of the smartphone market in recent months as they continue to sell phones such as the Galaxy S3 at a prodigious rate. Samsung have recently topped Nokia as the best-selling mobile phone company in the world, a crown which the Finns clung to for over a decade.

With the smartphone market seemingly sewn up they now turn their attention to the tablet market, an area in which they still lag behind Apple’s iPad range.
The Galaxy Tab 750 is a slim-line lightweight slate weighing just 565 grams and measuring in at 256.7 x 175.3 x 8.6 mm. Fitted with a power-house dual-core processor and runs Androids superb Honeycomb operating system.

Samsung have obviously focussed on the display for this tablet, presumably in response to Apple’s best-selling Retina Display technology. This Galaxy Tab has 1280 x 800 WXGA display pumping out a pixel density of 149ppi which will do your image-based media justice.

In terms of functionality and interface, this Tablet 750 also rivals the iPad. It consists of an intuitive feature called Live Panel, which compresses all your favourite apps and news feeds into an easily accessible set of slabs on the home screen. Emails, social networking and web pages can all be instantly accessed with a few swishes of the finger. Live Panel can be altered and adjusted at any time to allow the stream of information being pumped through the tablet to be tailored to individual preferences. Mini applications such as the calendar and calculator – the dull functional stuff – can be accessed easily as pop ups via the Live Panel.

The Galaxy Tab 750 has a rear 3 mega-pixel camera with LED flash, plus round the front there is a secondary 2 mega pixel camera for video calls and the like.

Tablets have now become the number one vehicle for web access and the Galaxy Tab 750 recognises the importance of a smooth browsing experience. Equipped with HSPA+ and Wi-Fi capabilities allowing 3G speeds up to 21mb/s, so if you’re after a super-speedy internet experience then this Tab could well be the device for you. Online multimedia content can be viewed via the Flash capabilities and there is also Bluetooth v3.0 for extra connectivity.

Book lovers take note: this Galaxy Tab 750 has a feature called Reader’s Hub built-in to its software package. Reader’s Hub gives you access to millions of titles from the latest best-seller to literary classics. If you enjoy curling up with a good book but don’t want to be burdened with a heavy physical copy then the Galaxy Tab 750 ticks yet another box.

In terms of storage, this Tab provides options for 16, 32 and 64GB devices, which is plenty of room for all your music, videos and photos. It runs the top-of-range Honeycomb OS which is the tablet-optimised Google Android system. Every icon and tab is perfectly placed but there is also lots of scope for customisation, should you want to shift the interface around.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 750 is definitely well-placed to give Apple’s iPad a tough test in the race for our cash.