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Anyone looking for a camera phone that could stand in as a very good replacement for their digital camera only needs to look as far as the Nokia N86, which benefits from Nokia’s exceptional camera phone experience, all put together in this model.

When Nokia talks camera phone with the N86, it’s not kidding, The camera is a whopping eight megapixels, and the Carl Zeiss wide angle lens ensures crystal clear pictures, good enough to please the most discerning eye. The digital zoom works well here, thanks to the high picture resolution. Unfortunately, you have to go through menus to reach the camera, rather than just using the shutter button, which makes everything more fiddly than it really needed to be.

Users can readily upload finished pictures to Flickr (and movies to YouTube), but it’s a shame that there’s no easy upload to Facebook. However, viewing pictures on the phone’s screen is a delight, even though it’s not too generous at just 2.6”.

On the downside, the direction pad isn’t too easy to use, but a well-spaced, responsive keypad more than makes up for it. With GPS built in and 3G, it offers more than just pictures, and the 3.5mm headphone jack allows users to employ their own headphones for listening.

The Nokia N86 does a lot of things well, but it does pictures superbly – simply one of the very best camera phones on the market. It should be among the top choices for anyone seriously considering replacing their digital camera with a camera phone.

Exclusively on the Three Network, the INQ1, more commonly known as the Facebook phone, is a handset for those who like to be in touch in ways that extend beyond conventional phone calls. Like other Three phones, it’s set up for free Skype calling, which can be a real cost-saver, and also for Windows Live messaging and Facebook – a true social media phone among the latest mobile phones, in fact.

It’s all remarkably easy to use, organising phone contacts with Skype and Facebook contacts all in one place for ease, and the navigation key makes moving around the different functions simple. Powered by 3.5G (actually HSDPA), the browser is also excellent and extremely fast, which stands as a great plus. The keypad is nicely responsive and well spaced for ease of typing, although it’s the standard mobile phone set up, rather than a QWERTY keyboard.

So far, so good – but what are the bad points of the phone? It’s lacking Wi-Fi, a good 3.5mm headphone jack for listening to music, and the camera, even though it’s 3.2 megapixels, leaves a lot to be desired in quality. In other words, past the social media functions, it’s quite stripped down. Also, and this is a major failing, it doesn’t come packed with a client for Twitter, the hottest of social media applications.

Among Three mobile phones, the INQ1 does have a lot going for it, including price (it’s a low-cost phone). What it does, it does very well and smoothly. The problem is that it could do a lot more.