RESTON, USA: Wirefly, the online leader in one-stop comparison shopping for cell phones and wireless phone plans, recently announced its Top 10 cell phone alternatives to the Apple iPhone. The Blackberry Curve, LG Dare, and HTC Touch are among the most popular choices.

Phones that made the list include those that have the type of touch-screen and multimedia features that make the iPhone popular, plus many features that the iPhone lacks, such as a full keyboard, live TV, video recording, photo/video messaging, removable battery, stereo hands-free Bluetooth, and a memory card slot to expand memory capacity.

"One of the issues with the iPhone is that many consumers just don't want to get locked into the iPhone contract," said Brian Westrick, Wirefly's President. "The iPhone requires a two-year contract with AT&T and many of our customers are not interested in changing their current carriers. Also, even at lower prices, the iPhone is still more expensive than other smartphones. There is an abundance of cell phone alternatives to the iPhone that have the same "gadget" appeal without the associated headaches."

According to Wirefly, the Top 10 cell phone alternatives to the Apple iPhone are:

1. LG Vu CU920 (AT&T): This sleek touch-screen phone has a large display and a matte black finish, with 3G data speeds, wide-screen virtual keyboard for texting, and streaming live TV.

2. LG Vu CU915 (AT&T): If you can live without live TV on your phone, the new LG Vu CU915 may be the best deal in touch-screen phones today. It's the same phone as the LG Vu CU920 without live TV.

3. LG Voyager (Verizon Wireless): The Voyager has a unique design with flip-up touch-screen and hidden full QWERTY keyboard, plus Verizon's EV-DO can be up to 40 percent faster than the iPhone 3G's maximum data speeds.

4. HTC Touch (Sprint/Alltel): The most compact touch-screen phone on the market features the incredibly easy TouchFLO touch-screen technology and the faster EV-DO high-speed Internet.

5. LG Dare (Verizon Wireless): This brand new model for Verizon is super thin, with a brilliant huge touch-screen and EV-DO data speeds; 3.2-megapixel camera/camcorder includes face detection.

6. Samsung Glyde (Verizon Wireless): Samsung's high-end phone is the best of both worlds, with a full touch-screen interface and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, plus EV-DO high-speed Internet.

7. HTC Tilt (AT&T): This powerful and popular smartphone with a full tilt-up keyboard does it all, from WiFi to GPS to a 3 megapixel camera/camcorder, plus Microsoft Windows Mobile.

8. BlackBerry Curve (AT&T/Alltel/Sprint/T-Mobile/Verizon Wireless): The best-selling BlackBerry is available for all carriers, with Internet browsing, texting, instant messaging, plus camera, music, and video.

9. LG Glimmer (Alltel): The cool slider phone for Alltel has a touch QVGA display plus a traditional keypad; music player, camera, and expandable memory round out the feature set.

10. Palm Centro (AT&T/Sprint/Verizon Wireless): The slimmest and best Palm ever is power-packed with Microsoft Windows applications plus high-speed Internet, camera, video and music player.

Westrick continued: "The iPhone is certainly a revolutionary device within the wireless marketplace and has been met with great enthusiasm. But with Apple locked into an exclusive contract with AT&T until 2012, it didn't take the other carriers and manufacturers long to come up with really worthy iPhone alternatives."

Wirefly.com has increasingly become a bellwether for consumer trends in wireless, as tens of thousands of people purchase cell phones and rate plans on Wirefly every month after comparing hundreds of phone models from all the major carriers. With that many shoppers, Wirefly has great insight into the hottest trends and more importantly, consumer buying behavior in the wireless market today.