Remember when the Blackberry first came out a few years ago? It was like everywhere you went, people were either talking about Blackberries or using them. Something about the little device captured the public’s imagination and all of a sudden everyone either had one or wanted one. No wonder it soon developed the nickname “crackberry”!

Well, it now seems to be the same situation with touch screen mobile phones. Of course, it was Apple who started the snowball rolling back in 2007 when they first released the iPhone. It truly was a groundbreaking product and since that fist release, they’ve brought out two major updates, the iPhone 3G in 2008 and the 3GS in 2009.

The iPhone was the first touch screen mobile phone to hit the market in a big way, but now pretty much every mobile phone manufacturer (even Blackberry) has followed suit with their own touch screen models.

There are various reasons why touch screen mobile phones are so popular. For the most part, they tend to be quite intuitive and easy to use. By tapping and sliding icons on a screen, it is usually pretty clear how to do something. If you’re not sure, usually you can just guess and the chances are you will be right. Of course, the design geniuses at Apple lead the way in this usability factor, but other manufacturers are starting to get the idea.

Touch screen phones tend to look pretty good too, generally having pretty sleek designs.

But there are downsides, the major one being that the screen is made of glass. And glass breaks! If you’re someone who (like me) has a habit of dropping your phone, then it won’t take long before you’ve either scratched or broken the glass.

And the lack of a real qwerty keyboard is a disadvantage too if you’re used to the mini keyboard and scroll wheel of the Blackberry.

But all-in-all, touch screen mobile phones rock. And I think we’ll start to see many more of them hit the market in 2010.

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