Are mobile phones really hot?

Christmas being just round the corner, as always mobile phones are a popular gift choice. Reevoo.com gives you the low-down on mobiles; examining what's hot, what's not, what people are actually buying and which phones are the best value for money.

What's hot? The iPhone 3G of course! But it's not highly ratedDespite being one of the most talked about phones of the year, the iPhone 3G has failed to beat its 2007 predecessor.

The original iPhone is rated 8.3/10, just pipping this year's 3G offering to the post, (the iPhone 3G scores 8.2/10). According to owners, the major issues with the 3G model are its battery life and application crashes, meaning that other phones have been able to storm ahead of the iPhone. So, what really is the hottest mobile phone this season?

Revoo recommendations: Top five Christmas mobile phones

Top five most popular in last 30 days:
1. Nokia N96
2. Samsung F480 Tocco
3. Blackberry Storm
4. Sony Ericsson C902
5. Samsung Omnia

Top five highest rated phones of 2008:
1. BlackBerry Bold 9000
2. Sony Ericsson W980i
3. Apple iPhone 3G 8/16GB
4. Samsung F480 Tocco
5. Sony Ericsson K660i

Reevoo reviewers pick the BlackBerry Bold 9000 as the best phone released in 2008.

Reviews on Reevoo for the BlackBerry Bold 9000 include:

Positive+
+ Great keyboard for e-mailing and texting. Cracking screen which is nice and bright and videos look lovely on it. The sound from the internal speaker is really good. Just a great phone overall.
+ The Bold is undoubtedly the most impressive Blackberry yet. One of its greatest advantages is that in spite of many new features, it feels very familiar. Web browsing is almost broadband speed.

Negative
– Out of the box battery life is bad but gets better with regular charges
- The hyped-up phones usually get all the attention but it's interesting to see how the most popular phones differ from the most highly rated:

The Nokia N96, whilst being the most popular phone on the market, gets marked down by reviewers for poor battery life and software problems. At around £500 for Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) customers, it's no surprise that it also gets rated below average for value for money.

However, it does impress with its design and features. One reviewer writes "great picture and video quality, very easy to find your way around, fantastic features...looks good".

So who wins the race?

When it comes to value for money, the stylish Samsung F480 Tocco is a great buy. It scores highly for design and features and gets much higher scores for battery life than the Nokia N96, both iPhones and the BlackBerry Bold 9000. It's around £150 PAYG or free on some contracts.

Here are some of the reviews from owners of the Samsung F480 Tocco:
Positive:
+ Easy to use, good haptic technology feedback from the touch screen, excellent camera, fair battery life, smart, compact, stylish.
+ It's easy to use and has a very good memory and has good features that I would have expected.

Negative
- No Wi-Fi capability.
- Should come with a ball point touch screen pen, can be hard to press the right keys sometimes.