Smartphones have undergone a fascinating evolution in the past year or so. High-powered executives are no longer satisfied with a black and white screen displaying their latest e-mails. The smartphone has quickly evolved from a no-frills wireless e-mail inbox to technology’s equivalent of the mullet: business in the front, party in the back. Mobile instant messaging, “presence” and on-the-go access to Microsoft Office documents are all well and good, but today’s road warriors value entertainment almost as much as they do information.
In addition to practical doohickeys that make the phone easier to use — automatically adjusting the screen’s brightness for ambient light, for instance, or cranking up the volume in a noisy room — the top-selling smartphones of 2007 pack some impressive bells and whistles to amuse executives killing time in airport red-carpet clubs. And more importantly, many of them do it at a price point that would have been unimaginable a couple of years ago.
Want proof? Check out the ten best-selling smartphones in the United States last year, according to The NPD Group. (Sales through November 2007; prices at launch with a two-year contract. Market share cited only for the top five handsets.)
———————————
