Which is the best smartphone interface on the market?

The interface is now one of the most important features of any modern smartphone, with many people buying a phone based on what interface it has. Let's take a look at three of the best available.

Palm Pre, with WebOS

For ease of use and sleekness, nothing can touch the Palm Pre. With its WebOS operating system, the Palm Pre is easily the most intuitive phone on the market. Not only that, but the integration between apps on the Palm Pre is like nothing ever seen before, making it feel like the phone is, at times, doing your thinking for you. There's never been a phone like the Palm Pre, and for that reason, it must surely be the phone of the year, so far. One word of advice, though: it IS going to sell out quickly, so if you want one, you'd better not hang about.

Motorola DEXT, with MOTOBLUR

The first important fact about the Motorola DEXT, and the bit that has made it so talked about, is its interface: Google Android, with MOTOBLUR riding on top. As it's the first Android phone to focus on social networking as its key feature, the Motorola DEXT has garnered an awful lot of trade and consumer interest. It's certainly more of a looker (especially in the interface, the newly designed MOTOBLUR UI) than previous Android phones, and that fusion of enhanced looks and the still-awesome power of Android makes the Motorola DEXT a very compelling phone indeed. If social networking is your thing, this is the phone for you.

HTC HD2, with HTC Sense

So, the Motorola DEXT brings Android to the party, and adds on a new custom interface. The Palm Pre brings WebOS and a QWERTY keyboard. But is there a phone that can outdo them? Yes, there is: the HTC HD2. If you're talking big screens, there's no way you can avoid the HTC HD2, because it holds the record for the biggest screen seen on a mobile phone. At a huge 4.3 inches, it is truly vast, and the high, 800x480 resolution makes it genuinely easy to use things like scrollbars in menus. However, the HTC HD2 actually does a very good job of making it so you don't have to go into standard Windows menus that often, as on top of the operating system, the interface is Sense, an upgrade of HTC's patented TouchFLO 3D setup, where everything is achieved through various finger swipes and sweeping gestures. It is truly intuitive, and it (along with the truly awesome 1GHz Snapdragon processor) is the reason why the HTC HD2 is such an unmitigated joy to use. Of course, it's not all about being pretty, a phone needs to have decent features and the HTC HD2 has them in spades, from the 5 megapixel camera, through GPS, to incredibly fast HSDPA internet access (not to mention the superb Opera Mobile web browser). To a lot of people, the HTC HD2 is the ultimate Windows Mobile- no, the ultimate phone that has ever been made, FULL STOP...