The original LG Viewty was a phone of firsts, and now LG is hoping to repeat the success with the Viewty Smart.

The world’s first 5 megapixel touchscreen phone, the Viewty sold seven million handsets across the globe. The Viewty Smart takes that pioneering spirit into a new direction, offering the slimest 8 megapixel cameraphone on the market, and also the first to feature an ‘Intelligent Shot’ mode.

Improvements include:

- LG’s new “S-Class” 3D User Interface with extra features including an onscreen selector dial that makes switching to camera mode quicker and easier
- 60 percent higher resolution than the 5 megapixel Viewty, ideal for large prints
-  light sensitivity up to ISO 1600 and the LED flash keep details crisp and clear, even in dim lighting
- 3.0″ WVGA touchscreen
- DVD-quality recording, robust media playback options
- 12.4 mm thick and weighs a mere 102g, making it the slimmest and most portable 8 megapixel phone on the market.

The Viewty Smart goes on sale in the UK in May, with handsets to follow in the usual retailers throughout June.

The latest handset to be released by Samsung is an Orange exclusive in the UK, with their media-savvy mobile phone going up against the forthcoming LG Viewty Smart and Nokia N97 for the ‘Handset of the Summer’ title.

The Samsung i8910 HD (also known as the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD depending on which part of the world you live in) has the accolade of being the first handset able to record video in high definition 720p.

Add that to the i8910 HD’s 3.7″ AMOLED display, a Symbian S60-powered TouchWiz interface, 8GB of onboard memory and 8 megapixel camera, and it shapes up as an impressive all rounder.

Orange have certainly pitched the i8910 HD as a high end device, offering 1200 minutes and unlimited texts, unlimited satellite navigation (the phone also supports A-GPS) and 500MB of mobile browsing for £40 per month.

The handset is still not free on that high-end, 24 month tariff, costing £78.

The Samsung i8910 HD is out now in Orange stores, and online with Mobiles.co.uk.

The Motorola MOTO W7 Active Edition is a sleek 3G handset, centred around gesture-based input as well as catering toward those with an energetic lifestyle.

The W7 is a 3G phone with 2.2″ screen, two cameras including a 2 megapixel camera and VGA for video calling, 8GB of external memory space with microSD support, stereo Bluetooth and FM radio.

Accelerometer technology makes the simplest of phone functions fun, as flipping the phone over to silence the ringer of an incoming call, snooze the alarm clock or pause the music.

Two shakes allows the W7 to instantly launch your favorite application. When navigating photo albums or music libraries, flicking the phone right or left will shift between songs or pictures.

The Motorola W7 also ties into an active lifestyle, with a pedometer counting and recording every step when jogging or walking. A personal trainer application creates a unique profile to set goals and track progress.

MOTO W7 Active Edition will be available from Q2 2009 in Asia and Latin America. Interestingly, release dates for the European and US markets have not been revealed…we hope that Motorola won’t abandon these competitive markets!