Cell phones: we rate 60 standard and smart models.(CELL PHONE)(Product/service evaluation)

Cell phones of all stripes now offer some of the attributes of Apple's iPhone, which dazzled consumers when it arrived just six months ago.

New feature-laden smart phones include the HTC Touch, the T-Mobile Wing, and the recently released LG Voyager. They might not match the iPhone for multimedia prowess, but all have fairly large, easily readable touch screens and simplified menus.Other smart phones are shrinking in both size and price, including the $150 BlackBerry Pearl and the $100 Palm Centro.

But not everyone needs a phone with sophisticated capabilities driven by a computerlike operating system. Our tests for this report are still dominated by regular phones you typically get for $100 or less with a two-year service commitment.

Here's the news in phones of all types:

More keyboards.With text messaging the most common cell-phone activity after voice calls, more conventional phones now sport the familiar QWERTY keyboard for easier typing, a standard feature on almost all smart phones.

Dual-connection phones. Some smart phones, including the iPhone, T-Mobile Dash, Nokia N95,T-Mobile Wing, and HTC Touch in our Ratings, can operate on either a phone network or a Wi-Fi connection, which provides faster Internet browsing and downloading. T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home models are the first regular cell phones with Wi-Fi access (see page 39).Verizon's BlackBerry 8830 is a CDMA smart phone that also connects to GSM networks in foreign countries.

More music features. Even most basic cell phones now have an MP3 player with improved capabilities, though the music itself is still typically loaded from your computer via cable. Phones such as the LG Chocolate and Motorola Razr2 even support stereo Bluetooth headsets, for music enjoyment with fewer wires. (See page 43.)