Smart phones: tests of the iPhone vs. new multimedia models.(Apple iPhone, LG Prada, Nokia N95)(Product/service evaluation)

If you've long owned one of the smartest of the smart phones, chances are you bought it to do work, such as checking office e-mail. Now a new breed of smart phones, including Apple's hit iPhone, is designed more for play. Slimmer and lighter than workaholic phones, they devote their smarts to multimedia: music, photography, Web browsing, and other diversions.

We compared the iPhone, $400, with two of its closest rivals: the LG Prada, $550, and the Nokia N95, $750. All three "fun" smart phones have sizeable, bright color screens, which makes them excellent for viewing photos, videos, and Web sites. On the iPhone and LG Prada, a touch screen turns into a virtual keypad and other controls.

As for drawbacks, none is great for phoning. While all were fine in sensitivity, they scored only fair for listening quality and good for talk quality. That's about average for cell phones that use GSM networks, as these do, but below the performance of the best smart phones we've tested.

The Nokia and Prada have other fairly serious drawbacks, too, but the trade-offs might be worth it if you value their multimedia distinctions. We have quibbles about the iPhone, but it remains the best of the "fun" smart phones we've tested so far, and by far the most capacious for storing multimedia content.

For an iPhone minus the phone, there's now the iPod Touch. This multimedia player looks similar to the iPhone and has many of its capabilities though it lacks a phone, a camera, and text messaging and e-mail applications. A Touch with 8 gigabytes, the capacity of the iPhone, is $300; the 16GB model is $400.

iPhone $400

(with two-year AT&T contract)