There are a ton of capable smartphones on the market today but figuring out which one to get can be a daunting task given the myriad of hardware configurations on various carriers. There is a chart though that may help you make your decision.Sometimes it seems everyone has an iPhone because that is what people buy because that is what everyone has. It is a vicious cycle that the market leader loves and perpetuates as much as possible. Unless you absolutely need something the iPhone has that no other phone does, such as iTunes integration, there are other choices out there on a variety of platforms and carriers.

Apollo Clark, a reader at LifeHacker, has put together a fairly comprehensive chart of all of the major smartphones currently available in the US and for good measure, a few tablet devices like the iPad and Dell Streak.

In some cases, the chart is very detailed, perhaps too detailed. I am not sure how many people really care if their phone's processor was made from 65 nanometer or 45 nanometer fabrication no matter how much of a geek they consider themselves. Oddly enough the operating system isn't listed, which can be important, especially for Android which has three to four releases currently available in the marketplace.

Besides those few quibbles, the chart should prove useful in making your selection. Information about processor speed, available RAM, Bluetooth versions, and typical plan costs is all there. The only real problem with this chart is it will be outdated in just a few months, just like everything else in the smartphone world.