iPhone 3GS bests Palm Pre and Blackberry

When the people at Consumer Reports put this year’s collection of smartphones through the paces, it was the Apple iPhone 3GS that came out on top, preferred over the Palm Pre and Blackberry.

The venerable consumer testing publication gave the iPhone the nod because of its “superior display, reinforced by top-notch multimedia, navigation, Web browsing, and battery life.” The Palm Pre was not far behind in the rankings. The Blackberry Storm was a relative also-ran.

Paul Reynolds of Consumer Reports said of the phones, “The phones vary significantly in how they achieve their high scores. The iPhone 3GS edged out high-scoring competitors such as the Palm Pre and BlackBerry Storm thanks to a superior display, reinforced by top-notch multimedia, navigation, Web browsing and battery life. The Pre, the Storm and other BlackBerry models bested the iPhone in messaging, and the Pre, with its new deck-of-cards handling of multiple applications, is a superior multi-tasker.”

The magazine changed some of the parameters of their metrics when testing this year’s crop of smartphones, according to an eWeek article. Recognizing the devices as more computer than phones, it put more emphasis on display, ease of navigation, and multimedia and messaging capabilities, and reduced the importance of talk time and voice quality. Reynolds said, “The iPhone 3G and some other older phones have moved up due to these changes while others, including the Samsung Blackjack II and BlackBerry Pearl Flip, have dropped in their ranking.”

The Palm Pre and the iPhone truly appear to be the cream of the current crop of smartphones. In some ways, it comes down to the individual preferences of the organization or individual tester. This can be clearly seen in Reynold remarks about phones which moved up and down on the scale. More important, the closer that smartphones come to the ideal of truly portable computers, the less the “phone” part of the device matters.

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