Phone: Palm Pre 2

The Palm Pre was great. But Palm nearly dropped dead and had to be rescued with a massive jolt of cash from Hewlett-Packard. The Pre Plus was great, but nobody bought it. Now, we have the Pre 2 and Palm must be hoping lightning doesn’t strike thrice.

The Pre 2 has much the same size and look as the Pre Plus, though it’s a whisker slimmer, thanks to a glass screen. A five-meg camera replaces the three-meg original, and there’s a much faster 1GHz TI Omap 3630 processor.

A smartphone is only as good as its OS and software support. The Web OS 2.0 does not disappoint and brings along true multitasking.

Universal search is called Just Type, and searches everything on the phone. Quick Actions are new within it — start typing and you can use the text in any way you want, from updating your Facebook status to making it the body of a text or email. The platform also allows you to perform actions from the phone without launching apps.

You can easily import all the contacts from your social networks, with favourites prioritised when you search, as well as having their own section in Contacts. You can also set shortcuts for texting and emailing — type ‘Br’ and it comes out as ‘Best regards’, for instance.