There have been some great phones launched during 2009 and probably one of the best has to be the LG Cookie!

The success of this phone lies in its low price and touch screen technology. It is a phone that also comes loaded with gadgets we all love.

But lately SAMSUNG have launched the Tocco Lite to rival the Cookie as one of the best budget phones with touchscreen technology.

Specifications are almost indentical but the Tocco Lite is slightly more expensive but is falling with various deals out today.

Physically both phones are roughly the same size. Both have similar size screens (3 inches) and excellent high resolution. Color definition is crisp and the pixels all work as they should.

Samsung’s TouchWiz User Interface works pretty well on the Tocco Lite and this interface is now looked upon as universally popular and proven. You can customize your home screem by mobile widgets which also allows easy access to various applications. Other widgets are available for web applications and pack most of the common ones including Facebook, YouTube and MySpace.

You can rotate your screen from Portrait to Lanscape Modes via the built in accelerometer sensor. This is all automatic too when you flip the phone on its side!

It has a virtual QWERTY keyboard that is simple and functional with the touchscreen. User interface also supports handwriting recognition and also a gesture lock.

The Tocco Lite has a 3,2 megapixel camera with digital zoom and also has a “Smile Shot” feature that allows you to snap a picture when the camera actually “thinks” you are smiling! So no more miserable shots! You also have the added benefit of editing your pictures on the actual camera itself.

Biult in is a camcorder, music player, FM radio with RDS and also supports MP3 downloadable ringtones. The sound quality is excellent with a virtual 3D surround sound effects. Also built in is an equaliser and also support for DNSe.

Memory is very good and is expandable to 16GB with a microSD card. Support for Bluetooth and USB is standard. However there is no support for WiFi or 3G so certain features such as YouTube may be somewhat compromised in quality.

Browsing the World Wide Web is simple and good and makes best use of the large screen of the phone. It allows easy access to Google mail, Google Search and Google Maps including RSS feeds. Download speeds aren’t the greatest but still satisfactory for this cheaper end of the scale phone.

The battery is suprisingly long too. Even though it does not have a heavy duty unit it still carries out its duties without having to recharge every few hours!

In a nutshell the Tocco Lite is an excellent budget phone loaded with goodies suitable for most at a cost most can afford!