iPhone 4
The iPhone has always come at messaging from the right angle – Exchange email, threaded conversations and so on, and now it's got a unified inbox too. We agree it's not groundbreaking, but all the small steps are in the right direction.
The QWERTY keyboard is ridiculously good on the touchscreen – so many people will use the iPhone as their first taste of non-keyed handsets and will be blown away at how easy it is.
HTC Desire
With the Desire you're actually pretty limited in terms of how much you can do messaging-wise. Sure, you can add widgets for Facebook and Twitter and such, but in terms of core functionality, it's pretty much the same as the iPhone.
That's not to say it's a bad experience, but we'd hope a forward-thinking company like HTC would be seeing opportunities to create a unified inbox for Facebook, Twitter, email and everything else, like the BlackBerry range manages so easily.
That said, the keyboard is almost on a par with the iPhone, spookily working out what you're trying to say even if you just look at the correct keys. (Note: not actually true about the eye thing. But typing-wise it's tip top).
Samsung Galaxy S
Like the other two phones on test here, the Galaxy S doesn't really have much in the way of unification.
Like the Desire's Friend Stream, it has social networking all in the same place, and the cool 'Write and Go' application works nicely too if you find you have something to say but can't initially decide whether to email, text or Twitter it.
The keyboard is decent too – it also packs Swype, where you trace instead of tapping letters out. It's clever and works well, but it's not so much re-inventing the wheel as creating something that's as good but different. Like… erm… we don't know what's as good as a wheel.
Winner: iPhone 4/HTC Desire
