The folks at Popular Mechanics have published a concise comparison of 8 different smartphone devices here on their website. Each smartphone is rated across a variety of attributes with a final overall grade assigned to the device. The eight phones with their overall grades are as follows:

• Nokia N95 received an overall grade of C
• Helio Ocean received an overall grade of C+
• LG enV received an overall grade of B-
• T-Mobile Wing received an overall grade of B
• BlackBerry 8830 received an overall grade of B+
• Palm Treo 755p received an overall grade of B+
• Samsung BlackJack received an overall grade of A
• Apple iPhone received an overall grade of A

I’m not exactly sure I’d grade the BlackJack an A – especially if you look at the attribute breakdowns.. but then again, I’m not Popular Mechanics either. Would I give the iPhone a solid A? I’d give it an A for effort but I don’t consider it the be all or end all of smartphones.

A smartphone is only as smart as how it helps the owner of the phone. Does it make your life easier? Or does it make it harder? That to me is the ultimate question one should be asking. Is my life easier with the T-Mobile Wing or the Treo or the iPhone? I suppose that’s a question we each need to decide.

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