It’s smart, sleek and claims to mark an ‘innovative step in touch screen technology’, but is it enough to take on Apple’s iPhone?

Definitely one for the fashion conscious, the Samsung F480 ‘Tocco’ bares more than a passing resemblance to Samsung’s pricier Armani handset, and is not dissimilar to LG’s Prada phone.

But it is more than just a pretty face.

It has 3G with downloads at up to 7.2mb/s, a 2.8 inch screen, and tri-band GSM.

The 5 megapixel camera has image stabilising technology on board, and there is 240 MB of internal music memory.

The main selling point of the Samsung model is the tactile touch function, hence its name ‘Tocco’, which their PR kindly reminds us is Italian for ‘touch’.

When the screen is touched it responds with small vibrations to make it as user-friendly as possible.

But user-friendliness is where critics say that ‘Tocco’ fails to compete with the iphone.

Stuart Miles from gadget review site Pocket-lint says the F480 doesn’t quite match up.

“The touch function is useful but you don’t really need it and it drains the battery. The iphone does a lot more things in a simpler fashion.

“From a browsing or music perspective, the F480 doesn’t compete.

“Although people complain about itunes it is still a fantastic service.” he said.

Apple is not the only manufacturer trying to make the supermodel do-it-all of the phone industry.

Mr Miles said they are around 7 new mobile product launches a month, with every one trying to be that little bit sleeker or faster and find the edge in a packed market.

Ultimately, he thinks companies will aim to sell us several phones each, one for every occasion.

“Manufacturers want to get everything they can into a handset but there are always compromises on battery life or size, or you get a camera phone that’s great but the GPS is not that great.

“I think they envisage selling us different phones for different purposes. At the moment you get a lot of devices that are a jack of all trades but a master of none.” he said.

A Sky News Online survey last year found 50% of people agreed that most gadgets are too complicated and have more functions than necessary.

Via news.sky.com