The title “Smartphones” indicates one very important character of these phones. They are indeed very clever. It does not, however, imply to another virtue that these phones have – their looks.

A gadget can be smarter than Stephen Hawking, but without the right design it might not get too far. Likewise, a beautifully designed device can get away with quite a few technical deficiencies, no problemo (ask my iPod).

This week, gadget-fans were busy with the arrival of a new contestant – Google’s Nexus One, which is so far receiving many compliments for its technical performances. Nexus One is also collecting praises on account of its design, but these come almost always with the additional: “because it kinda looks like the iPhone”.

I’ve looked at photos and must admit there is a resemblance, although I wouldn’t go so far as saying the Nexus One was designed after the iPhone (like some critics have said). Once you add a touchscreen, it’s kinda hard anyway to avoid the comparison. The point is, we are now programmed into judging smartphone designs in two categories: like iPhone and not like iPhone (there might also be a correlation between these categories and “good” and “bad”).

I found a few samples of these comparisons online, that exemplify how strong these categories dominate our judgment when it comes to the design of new cell phones:

Compared with the FIC Neo1973:

With the LG Prada:

With the Motorola Morrison:

And of course the Nexus One also got a similar treatment:

This whole thing has got me thinking about categories in design in general and how does the popular taste gets fixated on something. Are we, as designers, not able to design anything that does not already fit into an existing category? Or maybe we, as consumers, are unable to distinguish the nuances in design? I’d like to think the we can in both cases, but I don’t know. One thing is certain – Apple is always on the winning side.