$50 - $100 Cell Phones

The Bottom Line: While we're not huge fans of the design, the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 is a good choice for first-time smartphone buyers and offers more than its GSM counterpart.

Specs: CDMA2000 1X 1900/800, 270 min, With digital camera / digital player, 3.7 oz

The Bottom Line: While we're not huge fans of the design, the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 is a good choice for first-time smartphone buyers and offers more than its GSM counterpart.

Specs: CDMA2000 1X 1900/800, 270 min, With digital camera / digital player, 3.7 oz

The Bottom Line: The Pantech Impact has an eye-catching style and a respectable feature set, but its design could use some improvements.

Specs: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900, 300 min, With digital camera / digital player, 4.5 oz

The Bottom Line: The Pantech Impact has an eye-catching style and a respectable feature set, but its design could use some improvements.

Specs: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900, 300 min, With digital camera / digital player, 4.5 oz

The Bottom Line: While not as powerful as the Pre, the Palm Pixi offers first-time smartphone buyers a decent set of features in a sleek little package. However, to be really competitive, we think it needs to come down in price just a touch.

Specs: 3.5 oz

The Bottom Line: The Samsung Flight offers a unique, likable design and a fair number of features, but some performance gaps keep it from playing in the big leagues.

Specs: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (Quadband), Up to 180 min, With digital camera / digital player, 4.8 oz

The Bottom Line: The Samsung Flight offers a unique, likable design and a fair number of features, but some performance gaps keep it from playing in the big leagues.

Specs: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (Quadband), Up to 180 min, With digital camera / digital player, 4.8 oz

The Bottom Line: Despite our issues with the browser and the uninteresting design, the LG Chocolate Touch is a terrific music phone for Verizon Wireless.

Specs: CDMA2000 1X 1900/800, Up to 306 min, With digital camera / digital player / FM radio, 4.2 oz

The Bottom Line: Though its performance wasn't completely top-notch and we would prefer a more recent Android OS version, the HTC Droid Eris is a satisfying Android device that offers a nice contrast to the Motorola Droid. And you can't beat the price.

Specs: CDMA2000 1X 1900/800, Up to 214 min, With digital camera, 4.2 oz

The Bottom Line: Despite a few design issues, the Pantech Reveal is a good midrange messaging phone with the added bonus of a full HTML Web browser.