Keeping up with the pros and cons of ever-smarter new smartphone models is getting more complicated.

With CLIQs (Motorola’s new Android (News - Alert) entrant, pictured below), Heroes (HTC’s upscale and customizable Android model available from Sprint next week) and myTouches (T-Mobile’s second Android try) hitting the market, it’s not enough to just declare yourself an iPhone (News - Alert) fan or a BlackBerry die-hard. As competition heats up among device makers and wireless carriers, every smartphone release raises the stakes for subscriber loyalty.

Rather than diving into every feature of every new phone announcement, I have a few key benchmarks that can be used to quickly size up whether a new mobile device has what it takes to make me a convert.

Here’s what I look for first:

·         Rocket fast processor and processing speed. It takes major processing power to make more graphical and touch-intensive user interfaces into a great user experience. Faster processors also are required for all those media rich applications that I know I want - image processing apps, audio processing apps, multi-tasking apps, 3D games, and more.

·         A serious, clear as a bell speaker phone with a quick on/off toggle. This is a must for conference calls on the fly, talking while driving, using a navigation app and many other daily put-down-the-phone moments.

·         A battery life that’s at least as long as my current phone or it’s not even worth considering a switch; longer battery life is one of the major conversion considerations. Battery life gets more important with high-speed data access (3G and WiFi (News - Alert)) and if it’s not getting better, very soon it will get worse with 4G – so never trade down on battery life for an optional feature. You won’t be able to use that feature anyway when the battery is dead.

·         A touch screen that is sharp, clear, fast reacting and sensitive. Let’s face it, the phone keypad is a dying interface and the best smart phones are all going to be touch-based. But some devices have significantly better touch capabilities and responsiveness than others. Remember, it’s not just the screen surface that matters – this is an area where the OS counts too.

·         User-friendly form factor. Yes, this is a hard one to be objective about and it’s often where the strongest partisanship comes out since it really all depends on individual preference. Nonetheless, I believe there are good form factors and bad ones when it comes to the functions that you want to use constantly. So I look at the fundamentals. Does this device fit in my hands properly? (Dropping it before you get out of the store is generally a bad sign.) Is it awkward to access the device in some way, or to use it in different modes, or to switch from one mode to another? Do you have to think about what button to press or where to go next for more than a few seconds? Ideally, the device form-factor should be mindless – the user should not have to think about it after a short getting-to-know-you period. Essentially good form-factor is invisible, meaning it never calls attention to itself.

·         A UI that is seamless between applications.

Personally, I think the iPhone's got most of these benchmarks in the bag – at least for now. But I’m always looking at and evaluating the newest arrivals, just in case one of them makes the grade.