The person entrusted to find the winner of the ‘best smartphone 2010 award’ is going to have to consider not only the candidates that have received enormous press coverage, celebrity endorsement and multi-million pound advertising support, but also some of the less hyped smartphones that may well have slipped under the radar.

One such company that can claim to have had its products somewhat unfairly overlooked in this period is LG, but that could be about to change.

LG has a long history of innovative design when it comes to making mobile phones. It was the Mobile Choice Consumer Awards Manufacturer of the Year in 2009, with designs such as the elegantly simplistic LG KG130 mobile phone winning many friends. Designed as an entry-level mobile, the KG130 not only fulfils the criteria of being easy to use for a beginner, but the phone comes packed with features including polyphonic ringtones, 4x digital zoom and a built in VGA camera.

The company made real strides, particularly in 2008 and 2009, when it began to develop some of the best touch screen mobile phones available today. Touch phones, as they came to be nicknamed, were the important link between the old-style mobile phones and their traditionally laid out numbers and the smartphones of today, thanks chiefly to their touch screen technology.

One of the most popular and iconic touch phones of the past few years has been the LG Cookie, available in two styles, the pink KP500 and the black KP501. Boasting a stylus pen for easy navigation, a 3-inch touch screen, handwriting recognition capabilities as well as Bluetooth and an auto-rotating display, the Cookie and its distinctive pink or black livery became a hit with mobile phone users seeking an elegant upgrade to their older handset.

Another phone that helped bridge the gap between traditional mobile handsets and the smartphone was the LG Viewty Snap. The Snap offered all the traditional accoutrement’s of a modern mobile device: touch screen technology, Bluetooth, a 5MP camera capable of taking both picture and video as well as in-built MP3 player; however, the Viewty also offered great Internet capabilities better than ever before, offering access to social networking sites at the click of a button.

It was a smart phone, without being a smartphone.

Come 2010, and the smartphone market really began to take off at a pace. While many people were busy buying phones that sounded more at home in the grocer’s shop, LG was busily developing its own smartphone technology.

The result was the release of three Android-powered smartphones under the Optimus label and at first glance, it was certainly worth the wait as each of the three smartphones has something different to offer.

The entry level Optimus GT540 is a perfect entry-level Android smartphone. It looks very stylish with its metallic effect casing and has an intuitive layout for the buttons. Its 3-inch resistive screen is particularly bright and ensures that all images on the phone are detailed and easy to view, even in strong sunlight.

Those considering buying the GT540 should know that it comes outfitted with 256MB of RAM and a 600MHz Qualcomm processor. As a result, the GT540 packs enough punch for the novice smartphone user at a price that puts it on a par with many touch screen phones. Its impressive multimedia options, including an excellent music player, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS ensure that there are plenty of gadgets and apps available for the Android platform that will keep many a novice smartphone user entertained for many months to come.

The second LG smartphone well worthy of consideration for the honour of best smartphone 2010 is the LG Optimus One, or as it is sometimes called, the P500. This LG handset boasts the new version of Android 2.2 (Froyo) and the phone is optimised to run smoothly with Google Mobile Services.  It is a particularly impressive machine and one that is designed to have the more advanced functions and compatibility sought by the more experienced smartphone user, as well as the accessibility and ease of use that is needed by those who are new to the smartphone market.

Powering the LG Optimus One is a high speed 600MHz processor that ensures that the software and apps run by the handset perform smoothly and without unnecessary lag. The phone also comes with a host of new options, including a voice search mechanism for ultra-quick navigation, a GPS navigation based on Google Maps, Google Goggle as well as access to Android Market, which searches over 70,000 Android apps and recommends which ones would be best suited for you.

The final phone is the LG Optimus 7, which uses Windows Phone 7 to ensure that the brand new LG handset offers unrivalled multimedia access, including links to sites such as Xbox Live and Zune Marketplace, not to mention an accurate voice-to-text facility, which allows you to ‘speak your tweet’ via Twitter.

With 16GB of memory on board, the Optimus 7 is particularly suited to HD content and allows transfer of content from the phone to another DLNA DMR enabled device wirelessly via Wi-Fi. In addition, the phone also offers an Augmented Reality Camera, which allows you to use the camera to check the weather by pointing it at the sky, useful points of interest in the locality by pointing it in front or behind you or at the ground for a localised map of your location. This is a practical, simple and innovative use of this technology.

So, next time people are talking about the best smartphones, do not follow the crowd. Instead, investigate LG’s winning range of smartphones available and you will quickly realise that you are looking at a serious contender in the smartphone market.

LG WatchPhone

The LG Watchphone has been described as the must-have gadget of the year, not only a watch but a fully functioning mobile phone to boot.

The handmade GD910, has a scratch resistant touchscreen interface, VGA Camera, media player, built-in speaker and video calling.

A mere 13.9mm thick, the 3G Touch Watch phone is available exclusively on Orange and is likely to set you back in the region of £500, sim-free.  A limited number of the gadget will be available on a first-come-first-served basis at the Orange Store on Bond Street, London.

Samsung are also launching a mobile phone watch later in the year but this will initially only be available in France at a cost of around £400.