LG Electronics, based in South Korea, is the third largest handset maker in the world. Just yesterday, the company announced the launch of its own app store. They’re starting out with 1,400 applications and it’s only accessible in Asia. But there are plans to expand into Europe and South American a few months from now, and when that happens, the number of available apps will increase to 2,000.

As of today, LG has not set a date to open an app store in the United States, but other companies have already done so. In March, Research In Motion opened its BlackBerry App World store with around 2,000 apps. The company is also working on creating a social networking site to complement and boost use of its applications.

Microsoft said earlier this year that they plan to open Windows Marketplace for Mobile, and yesterday announced that they will begin accepting app submissions beginning July 27. The company said Marketplace for Mobile will launch this fall, and that it will support Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 by the end of the year.

Nokia has launched an app store using its Ovi platform, and Google recently launched Android Market, which is still small, but will probably build a large and loyal developer following. The Palm Pre, which runs on the WebOS operating system, has very few applications available for it, and Palm has been reaching out to the developers community for more. Verizon is also making noise about creating an app store for its smartphones. Apparently, the company plans to aggregate applications into their marketplace from four developer communities: Palm, BlackBerry, Android, and Windows.

No matter what these companies do, how many apps they come out with, or how open they are to developers, they may never be able to catch up to Apple. Other than having time and sheer volume on their side, Apple has one other distinct advantage over every other mobile company—iTunes.

Prior to the Apple app store launch, iTunes was already a widely used program, so many users were already familiar with it. Linking its app store to iTunes not only eased the app download process, there was already a billing structure in place, as well as an account relationship between Apple and customers. This made it easy for app users to get what they wanted, as well as simplifying application monetization for developers.

Apple’s apps are seen as one of the biggest reasons the iPhone has been so successful. As other companies try to jump on the app bandwagon and compete, Apple’s iTunes/iPhone/app store trifecta may make it all but impossible for them to even catch up.

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AT&T Wireless
The address will be [the telephone number with area code and without any dashes or spaces]@txt.att.net, like so: xxxxxxxxxx@txt.att.net – OR – [the telephone number with area code and without any dashes or spaces]@mms.att.net, like so: xxxxxxxxxx@mms.att.net

Sprint PCS
The address will be [the telephone number with area code and without any dashes or spaces]@messaging.sprintpcs.com, like so: xxxxxxxxxx@messaging.sprintpcs.com

T-Mobile
The address will be [the telephone number with area code and without any dashes or spaces]@tmomail.net, like so: xxxxxxxxxx@tmomail.net

Verizon
The address will be [the telephone number with area code and without any dashes or spaces]@vzwpix.com, like so: xxxxxxxxxx@vzwpix.com

To Individual Phones With No Third-Party Cell Phone Service Provider
The address will be [the telephone number with area code and without any dashes or spaces]@txt.bell.com, like so: xxxxxxxxxx@txt.bell.com

If you need additional help sending ringtones to your cell phone, eHow has a how-to on sending ringtone files to others.

If the cell phone that you wish to send ringtones to cannot receive binary ringtones, you can upload the file to a site such as Fun For Mobile or Ventones and it can be downloaded by others from there.

Ringtone file formats

Different cell phone brands and models have differing capabilities. For example, any Blackberry, is able to read the most common format, MP3, so converting files to another format isn’t typically required. The owner’s guide or manual should include details on your phone model’s readable ringtone file format(s).

Converting existing sound files to a format that another phone can get technical. Sending the right file format to begin with is certainly much easier than having to convert it later. Here is some useful information on ringtone formats currently in use:

• MP3: Many devices, like the Blackberry, and other mobile phones support ring tones that are mp3 format.
• AAC: Some phones support ring tones in AAC format, though it is important to note there are two AAC formats “.m4r”, which is commonly used by devices like the iPhone and “.m4a”, as used by the Sony Ericsson W810i.
• KWS: Ringer format specific to Kyocera devices.
• iMelody: Many new phones not currently using the Nokia Smart Messaging format are using this format.
• MID / MIDI: Popular sound format used by a variety of devices.
• Nokia / SCKL / OTT: Nokia Smart Messaging format. Nokia phones are capable of receiving ringtones in text format. There are a variety of ring tone tools that can be used to create such text messages, allowing anyone with a compatible phone to add ring tones in without a data cable. Many other brands in addition to Nokia are compatible with this format.
• Other file formats include: PDB, PMD, QCP, RTTTL, RTX and SMAF.

Bottom line: Be sure to ask the recipient before sending a particular ringtone file as an email attachment, in case he or she needs the file in a different format.

Where to find free ringtones to use and share

There are so many places to find ringtones online these days, you need a guide to ringtone sites to locate the best providers. If you don’t want to read thr entire guide, here are a few sources you can start with in your search for the perfect ringtones:

MusicNation
MusicNation has a variety of ringtones compatible with most devices and variety of carriers, including: AT&T, T-Mobile, cricKet, Verizon, VirginMobile, and metroPCS, among others.

RingGrabber.com
RingGrabber offers previews and ringtone downloads that are compatible with most major cell phone carriers including T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon.

SendMe Mobile
SendMe Mobile has a vast number of ringtones from a wide array of music genres, interests and sound effects. Or search by carriers like Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, Boost, Cellular One (harder to find) and a very large selection of Sprint ringtones.

StreetTunes.com
StreetTunes has a $9.99 monthly subscription, which includes twelve downloads per month from an enormous number of categories including the typical music genres like Dance, Hip Hop & Rap, Country and Pop, as well as less common categories like Electronica, Broadway (am I the only one not upset this is “hard to find”?) and Colombian Regional.

Creating/Converting ringtones to use and share with others

Sound files that have been saved in other formats can be converted into compatible ringtone files using software on your Mac or PC. “Create-Ringtone” for Windows and “Ringtone Converter” for Mac are examples of applications that are capable of converting one file type to another.

In addition to converting from one format to another, iTunes 8 and above (for Mac and Windows) is also capable of creating 30-second (or less) clippings from the songs in your music library for use as ringtones.

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The essentials

If we’re going to build a smartphone, there are a few features that simply must be included. Since nearly every good model on the market has them, I think we can assume they’ll fit under a reasonably-sized hood. So WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS make the cut. Hey, with Qualcomm’s smaller Bluetooth chips, we might even have some room left over.

Device design and keyboard layout

I was going to leave this for the end, but since it’s the most important, it got bumped up. What would the ideal design of a smartphone be? Clearly, we’re going to need a touchscreen in there. Any smartphone entering the market without one is going to be at a disadvantage. Well, unless you’re Research In Motion. So that’s one aspect out of the way.

As for the screen, I think it’s going to have to resemble the iPhone. I just can’t see an “ideal” smartphone having a smaller sized screen. Of course, that presents another set of problems. As in, how do you go about the keyboard? Do you go iPhone and have it all digital? Slider? Fold-out?

Everyone surely has his or her own thoughts on this, but I can’t imagine it being anything other than a slider. True, that might cause a bit more thickness than is ideal. But in the end, it satisfies the needs of the mechanical keyboard crowd, while allowing for the touchscreen-only crowd to still use the on-screen keyboard. For design, think something along the lines of the BlackBerry slider patent application:

That just leaves physical buttons. As big a fan I am of RIM putting four buttons on the face, two on the top, and one on each side of their rumored Thunder, I think that’s a bit much for our purposes. Definitely have to keep the sides smooth, especially since it’s a slider. I think we can ditch the four physical keys on the face, too. Just the touch-style direction pad. That should allow the screen to be as big as possible — though adding the keys probably wouldn’t kill the design.

Camera

We’re already putting a ton under the hood of this bad boy, with the GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth chips. But hey, does that mean we can’t find room for an 8 megapixel camera? I think not. In fact, if we’re talking about the ideal smartphone, it’s nearly imperative.

See, that’s not too thick, is it? In fact, that’s probably the ideal thickness for our device. True, the c905 doesn’t have the same workings under the hood as our GC109 (that’s what I’m calling this smartphone from now on). But since this is just for fun, we can pretend, right?

Operating System

This is where a lot of us are going to differ. Some will say that Windows Mobile is the way to go. Alas, I cannot agree. I’ve used plenty of WinMo devices, and haven’t really been comfortable with any of them. Plus, everyone I talk to says they have the propensity to crash. I know some people might not have this issue, but I’ve heard it enough to know to avoid WinMo devices if possible.

Apple’s iPhone OS? Nah. We’re trying to build the perfect smartphone here, not give Apple credit for already having built it. While there’s little wrong with Apple’s OS, I think we should switch it up a bit. After all, there are a number of other mobile OSs that could work just as well, if not better.

Personally, I’d go with Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS 4.6. It’s coming for the new Bold, and will likely make its way onto the rumored Thunder. Then again, I’m a BlackBerry geek. So in fairness to everyone, I’d also say that Symbian is in play as well. Just so I’m not showing a complete BlackBerry bias.

So what did we make?

So, uh, it kinda looks like the iPhone. Damn! But there is the slide-out keyboard. And the badass camera.

All hail the crappy Photoshop skills. Huzzah!

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There are so many websites with ringtones available; you’d be hard-pressed not to find a ringtone you’d rather use over the factory installed defaults. It’s just a matter of finding good places, in the millions of search results, to download the ringtones. Just kidding, you won’t have to search millions of results. We’ve already searched and listed the best ones here, so you can get right to the downloading.

Free Ringtones

Many websites around have free ringtones that can be downloaded and installed on your phone free of charge. Here are some of the best, but watch your bill for unauthorized charges if you decide to sign up and download from free ringtone websites.

Cellsea
More than just a ringtone download site, Cellsea is a whole online community revolved around cell phones. They provide information and reviews about cell phones.

You can browse the ringtones by genre including hard rock, techno and hip-hop. Once you select the ringtone you want, all you have to do is go to the WAP version of the website and enter the download code. Hit the done button on the cell phone so the ringtone appears and then select option to save it.

Zedge
Not only does Zedge have thousands of cell phone wallpapers to download, they have thousands of cell phone ringtones to download as well.

You can search the ringtones using a keyword or category. You have to be registered in order to download the ringtones but registration is free. Then you can download any you like and you can even upload your own ringtones for everyone to enjoy.

Cool Free Ringtones
Cool Free Ringtones is exactly that, cool free ringtones, but not limited to ringtones alone. They have over 1000 ringtones to choose from including sound effects like chainsaws, censored beeps and bottle rockets flying.

You can download the ringtone directly to your phone or download it to your computer and transfer that file to your phone via cable. There is a listing of what phones should play the ringtone so take a quick look to see if your phone is on the list. If you decide to try it with your phone anyway and it works, send them an email and let them know your phone model so they can add it to the list.

Paid Ringtones

These ringtones may not be free, but at least you have a better chance of getting any issues fixed since you did pay for them.

MTV
How could you go wrong downloading your ringtones from a television station about music? If you want a music ringtone on your cell phone, this is the place to get it. Check out their weekly top tones, most popular ringtones or new ringtones list if you are not sure what you want or browse artists by selecting the first letter in the artist’s name.

The ringtones must be purchased and they can be bought one at a time or by a monthly subscription plan ranging from the entry level plan of 2.99/month for 1 ringtone to 9.99/month for 4 ringtones and 2 wallpapers.

Ringophone
At Ringophone, you can get unlimited downloads for a small fee. You can get a wide variety of ringtones including more unique categories such as fun, nametones and anthems. It’s pretty funny having your phone telling you personally to answer it.

Before you can download, you need to sign up for one of their unlimited plans: $14.99 for 6 months of unlimited downloads or $19.99 for 12 months of unlimited downloads. They say you can even share one account with your friends so you can split the cost between downloaders.

Jamster
It seems like there isn’t anything you can’t get from Jamster. They have ringtones, graphics, games, videos and even a section dedicated to hotties. You can get real tones, poly tones, fun sounds and video tones. Some of the more notable ringtones are Scarface, Family Guy and the ever popular Crazy Frog. They also have “Nametones” sung to a disco theme, boy band or Jessica Simpson’s “Public Affair”.

Jamster has multiple plans for $5.99, depending on your downloading preference, and they include a different number of mobile downloads. For example, the Jam Plan gets you 8 ringtones, 8 graphics and musicnews each month whereas the Fun Plan gets you 6 funsounds, 6 megapics and gossipnews each month.

Funtonia
With an extensive list of artists available, there’s a good chance you will be able to find the ringtone you want here. You can even earn some extra cash by getting people to sign up.

The details on cost are tough to find. Their FAQ only mentions that the cost depends on downloading quantity and frequency, but there’s a banner stating “1 cent a tone” most likely listed as the lowest possible price for the older stuff.

SendMe Mobile
SendMe Mobile has one of the biggest selections of ringtones, wallpapers, games and funny texts. Search by music genre or carrier including Verizon, T Mobile, AT&T, Spring, Boost and Cellular One.

Choose to pay-per-download or their $9.99 monthly subscription for 10 credits, which gives you 10 bonus credits. The cost per credit varies depending on the popularity of a ringtone, wallpaper or game.

Ringtone Jukebox
No confusing plans, no subscriptions, just a flat $2.99 per ringtone download. Although they support many phones, the ringtones may not work on all the cell phone models. Fortunately, they have a test feature you can use to send a sample ringtone to your cell phone. This way if it does not work, you won’t have to spend the $2.99 on something that won’t work with your phone.

For paying per tone, this website is good if you have a specific ringtone in mind you would always want to use or rarely change the ringtone since it could get quite expensive at three bucks a pop.

Create Your Own

Even with all the songs and sound clips available to be downloaded, you still might want one that is unique and not easily found. Here are some places to create your own online or download software to your computer.

The Ringtone Maker
Here you can get software for your computer to make your own ringtones for $16.49. You can also get a free trial version to try it out before you buy it.

Cellfish
Make your own ringtones online with Cellfish, a mobile media website. You can upload the mp3 file you want to use as a ringtone right on the website. From there, you can crop out the exact section (ringtone length up to 20 seconds) you want for the tone and then add it to your phone.

Ringtone Ripper
Download free software from Ringtone Ripper to make your own ringtones. Your cell phone needs to have text messaging and the service may not work with all cell phones. Check the FAQs for more information and contact them if you still have questions.

Make Own Ringtone
It hurts to say but gets the point across. Make Own Ringtone lets you upload multiple file types including mp3, wma or ogg. There are several modes allowing the user to really customize their tone.

If you want to make a quick ringtone, just use the easy mode. Advance mode lets you fade, reverse and change the speed and the expert mode opens the options echo, reverb and phaser. Once the tone is created you can download it to your computer, your phone or sent via email.

Be Creative But Choose Carefully

With all theses options available, there’s really no excuse for using the anything already preloaded on your phone. You would be wise, however, to choose carefully what songs you decide to download and use on your phone as ringtones. There are just some songs that shouldn’t be used as ringtones. Your individualism could leave you with no good reason to have a cell phone.

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I thought to myself, charms, like the braceletes that my 8 year old cousin wears? It had to be those! The only other charms I am familiar with are of the Lucky cereal variety and I can’t see them having any place on or around a cell phone, despite their strikingly similar aversions to liquid.

A quick Google search results in anywhere from 200 thousand to 2 million+ pages featuring the term “Cell Phone Charms”. A similar search of Technorati reveals more than 500 blog posts associated with the term. Clearly there is a strong market for cell phone charms online.

Join me now as I jump into the weird, wacky and wonderful world of cell phone charms.

What is a Cell Phone Charm?

A cell phone charm is exactly what it sounds like. It is a small trinket that is fixed to your cell phone antenna, or some other hook or latch available on your device. They are very remeniscient of the charms that young girls wear on their braceletes. You know the ones, little hearts, clovers, teddy bears etc.

Ok Ok I know, big girls also wear charm braceletes, the difference being that theirs are usually crafted out of precious metals and stones =)

Where do I find these charms

These cute little cell phone charms are widely available across the internet on many of the websites that will appear with a simple Google search. They are also available from nearly every cellphone accessories dealer you will find in your local shopping mall.

Here are a few of the better quality websites out there that allow you to purchase cell phone charms online:

• Accessory Geeks
• Cell Phone Accents
• eBay
• StrapYa World (very wacky selections here)
• ArtBeads (Just charms, no chains or lanyards)

How much do Cell Phone Charms cost?

Cell phone charms will vary in price depending on what style you choose and where you decide to purchase. Most dealers will offer you a discount on your merchandise if you purchase more than one charm at a time. Unless you are searching out an exclusive design or a cell phone charm made out of precious metals, you shouldn’t have to spend any more than $10 on a cell phone charm. The Blue Swarovski pearl Cell Phone Charm is very stylish and goes for only $8.

What kinds of cell phone charms are available?

If you can imagine it, it is available as a cell phone charm. Seriously, these things come in all shapes and sizes. They range from cheap looking little trinkets to very stylish gemstones and everything in between. In my search for quality cell phone charms, I have seen small silver high heeled shoes, tennis rackets, martini glasses, Swarovski crystals, dogs and cats, hearts, and teddy bears. I have also run into some strange offerings along the way. Can you imagine having a mutant Kewpie doll hanging off of your cellphone? I can =)

Which type of cell phone charm is best for me?

My tastes definitely lean towards the zany and out there concepts. I would have to say that the best cell phone charm for you would be one that expresses you personality most effectively. Are you a drinker? then go for the martini glass. Do you want to just dress your phone up a touch? Perhaps one of the beaded charms from Touch of Avalon might interest you, or one of the high end designer fashion options from Coach or Tiffany & Co.

Regardless of your style or budget, you will be able to find a cell phone charm with a little bit of searching. Have fun with it, you never know what you will stumble across.

My Favorite Cell Phone Charms

Here are a handful of my favorite cell phone charms which are made available through Strapya World

Final Fantasy Collection: A great series of cell phone charms dedicated to the much loved characters of the Final Fantasy franchise.

Miniature Food: Hilarious little replicas of all kinds of food items. Burgers, Veggies, Pies Oh My!

Mobile Display Cleaners: Zany “Cleaning Tools” which are meant to be used in cleaning your mobile display.

Miniature Cell Phone Cell Phone Charms: Leave it up the crazy designers in Japan to come up with the concept of tying miniature cell phones to your actual cell phone. Very circular and very meta. Not really practical, but I got a kick out of them =)

Japanese Wrestling Hero Masks: Wacky Japanese wrestler masks to hang off of your cell phone.

Living Plants: A tiny little cactus stored in a nutrient jelly so it never needs feeding.

UFO Detector: Ever wanted to have a device that can warn you when UFO’s are in the area? Now you can have all that protection right there hanging off your cell phone.

Drumming Skull: A kooky drumming skull to hang off of your cell phone.

Glow in the Dark Mushroom Caps: A tiny little glow in the dark mushroom cap in a glow in the dark container.

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There are countless websites offering great cell phone wallpapers, some for a price and others free of charge. Either way, you’re sure to get something you will want for your phone.

Free Wallpapers

With the costs of some cell phones these days, getting something for free would be really nice. Here’s where.

Free Mobile Fun
A warning greets you when you visit this website. No not an adult warning, but rather they only offer free content. So if you are looking to buy some stuff, you are going to have to go elsewhere.

There are several categories of free stuff including flags, cars and uploaded by user. The homepage lists new wallpapers for those wanting the latest and the top downloads for people wanting the most popular.

There are many resolution sizes available so there is sure to be one that will fit your phone. All you need to do is visit the website with your phone and put in the special code for the wallpaper or visit a specific webpage for the wallpaper picture and resolution size. It’s that simple.

Zedge
Zedge is a whole online community for mobile users. As such, you must register in order to download anything and it’s free to register. There are already over six million members and a forum to discuss a variety of topics including mobile downloads and troubleshooting problems. You can also create your own and upload them for other people to enjoy. That is, unless you want your creation all to yourself.

With about 20 categories and several thousand wallpapers per category on average, this website has one of the biggest selections of free wallpapers around. This is no doubt a result of the members uploading their own. You can search by selecting a term, resolution/phone, category and then order by criteria like alphabetical or most popular. It would be hard not to find wallpapers that will work with your phone.

Cellphone Wallpapers
Cellphone wallpapers offers more than just free cell phone wallpapers. You can also get ringtones, games, 3GP Videos and even mobile dating. There are several categories to choose from, but also sub categories if you are looking for something specific. For example, under the television category you can select to view only Family Guy or Simpsons wallpapers instead of fishing through the whole list within the category.

When you select your wallpaper of choice, you can get it in a number of ways. After you input your resolution, you can use the WAP ID, send directly to the phone or put in your email address and send it to your mailbox.

Wallpaper Base
This site appears to be about desktop wallpapers with a tagline “Your Source For Desktop Wallpapers”, but each wallpaper has the option of being sent to your cell phone. Just click the send to cell phone button to bring up the wallpaper. From there you can input your cell phone resolution size and hit enter when both numbers are in for it to generate picture at that size. You can either visit the webpage from your phone or download to your computer if you have the proper computer/phone hook up. This will save any airtime and browsing on your phone.

You can sign up for the website and become a member to converse in the forum or to upload your own wallpapers if you want. There is even a designer area to see how many wallpapers people submitted and the number of times the wallpapers were hit. There are multiple categories to choose from, including a top 50 category which is not surprisingly made up of almost all sexy girls.

Mobile Apples
This site has a lot of content but not for some of the bigger resolutions. Searching for larger sized wallpapers turned up no results. They still have a selection for the standard 176 x 220 though. By signing up you can upload your own wallpapers for others to view. If you want your wallpapers to be seen this would be a great place. Since many of the categories have a low picture count or have no wallpapers uploaded, yours would have a better chance of being seen and downloaded.

Find the wallpaper you want and get the WAP ID listed on the webpage. When you visit the website from your phone you enter the WAP ID to download right to your phone. There are also nifty screensavers to keep you staring at your phone screen even longer.

Pay Wallpapers

In case you feel guilty about getting something for free, here are some websites where you need to purchase your cell phone wallpapers.

Ringtone Jukebox
Don’t let the name of this website fool you, it does have a wide selection of wallpapers available to download. You can browse the wallpapers available from an assortment of categories, but you need to register and sign in before you can buy the wallpapers. They are all stamped “sample” to keep people from just grabbing the picture from the browsing page. If you like having “sample” slapped across your wallpaper, by all means try.

You need your country, service provider, cell phone number and phone model in order to register. This information is needed for them to send your purchase directly to your cell phone. I couldn’t find the pricing for the wallpapers, but the ringtones are $2.99. You can also test your cell phone’s compatibility by downloading sample wallpaper for free.

Lavalife Mobile
Lavalife has expanded from helping two people get together to helping a person get together with their true love, their cell phone. Their wallpaper selection is most interesting. Although they have several categories listed, they include wallpapers I never expected to see. There are many random ones(Kevin Bacon from Hollowman? Wow) that kept me flipping through the many pages for each category to see what else was included.

This is also a pay service, but you don’t pay per download. Instead you have a monthly fee of $9.99 that allows you to download unlimited wallpapers, real tones, poly tones and alerts. It amounts to 33 cents a day for the average month and is great for people who like to download frequently. There is no credit card needed to sign up, you only need your cell phone number and email address. The charge most likely goes to your cell phone bill.

SI Mobile
A website only a man would be interested in (okay, and some women), the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit site is the all women, all the time channel. What man wouldn’t want to have one of these beauties gracing their cell phone screen? If you’re lucky, one of them would already be your girlfriend so if someone asks you can tell them “It’s okay, she’s my girlfriend”.

Since the site is all gorgeous gals, there is no need for categories, but you can select to see all the wallpapers from your favorite model. Wallpapers are $1.99 per download and registration is not required although you can register a profile for member benefits. Be sure to get your significant other’s permission before downloading.

Wallpaper 4 Mobile
For all the fantasy, sci-fi and “spacey” people, this destination would be the best place to start. This site is full of very colorful and detailed wallpapers within the categories universe and plants, landscapes, fantasy and sci-fi. The selection is small but what is available is quite dazzling and unique. They are also not from any familiar TV show or video game. You won’t find anything Star Wars or Star Trek in the sci-fi section.

Wallpapers cost credits and the cost of the credits is based on the country. People in the US are looking at about 2 dollars for each wallpaper and Canadians about 3 dollars. I’m not sure why they needed to make it a little more complicated instead of just having a flat rate.

The Minds Eye
The Minds Eye has a wide selection of wallpapers that remind me of things you might see in an art museum. There are several 3D creation, fractal and photography wallpapers for your cell phone. The 3D creations are stunning and the fractals are extremely mesmerizing. There’s only a small selection of wallpapers for the cell phone but the site has more than just cell phone wallpapers. You can also get wallpapers for computers and PSPs.

You are required to sign up before you can download. There is a membership fee at registration with an introductory offer of six dollars for two months. Even if nothing catches your minds eye for your mobile device, there are free desktop wallpapers you might want to download for your computer.

Keep in Mind

No matter where you decide to get your wallpaper from, keep a few things in mind. When you’re paying for the wallpapers, find the one you know you’ll want first so you don’t keep downloading and racking up your bill. Do your research to make sure it will even work with your phone and resolution. Although most will, some may not. You don’t want to find out the hard way the one you want doesn’t work with your phone.

Whether free or paid, if you are downloading from your phone there may be some cost from your provider for browsing and downloading. The wallpapers may be free but getting them may not be so don’t go nuts downloading unless you have an unlimited plan.

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Some of the available resources offer free wallpapers which you can download either to your desktop or directly to your phone (data charges will apply), while others require a one time or ongoing financial commitment. The paid resources tend to have higher quality graphics available and in larger quantities. Although finding free high quality wallpapers for your phone is tough, there are some out there.

There is another option available for individuals who are the slightest bit confident using a computer and some free software to modify graphics files. These people have unlimited resources for finding and changing any image they desire into a one of a kind wallpaper for their cell phone. Even if you feel you do not have the requisite skills to create your own wallpapers, please do give this tutorial a shot. I think you may surprise yourself!

Getting Started

The most popular cell phone resolutions
128×160
176×220
128×128
240×320
176×208

In order to determine your cellphones resolution, refer to your product documentation or check to see if your model is listed on sites like phonescoop.com.

If you can not find out what size (resolution) of wallpaper you require for your specific model of phone, please feel free to leave it in the comments and I will research the information for you.

Selecting your image
The first step on the path to creating custom wallpapers for your cellular phone is to determine where you are going to find your new wallpaper image. The source can be virtually anything you can think of. Perhaps you have a photo of your dog that would look adorable on your flip phone, or maybe you received a great image via email. As long as the image is in digital format, you are good to go. If you have a photograph that is not in digital format, you will have to do one of two things; either scan the image (most copy places provide this service) or take a digital photo of the image.

For the purposes of this article, I will be sourcing an image from Google Images. Google Images is a great resource for wallpaper ideas. Do keep in mind though, that these images are copyright for the most part and any wallpapers made from copyright materials should be used for your own personal enjoyment only. It is never ok to sell or distribute wallpapers without the appropriate permissions from copyright holders.

Finding an image using Google Images

1. Decide what type of wallpaper you would like. ie. Dogs, Fish, Nature (Hint: type in abstract and you will get a ton of great images for wallpapers!)
2. Navigate to http://images.google.com and enter your search terms in the search box.
3. Ensure that the drop down beside “Images Showing” reads “Large Images” or “Extra Large Images”. It is better to have a larger image and shrink it than to try and enlarge a tiny image.
4. Select and save the desired images to a folder on your desktop.
5. Repeat this process until you have found a variety of images you might want to have on your cell phone as wallpaper. It is a good idea to have a few ideas, as not all images will be suitable for editing into the correct format.

Here are a few examples of images I have selected from Google Images:

Locating the image editing software

Now that you have decided on a few images you would like to try turning into cell phone wallpapers, let’s take a look at the software we will be using to modify the images.

I am working on a PC machine to do this demo, so I will be using Gimp for my image manipulation. If you happen to be running a Mac, you can download a trial version of Acorn here. Acorn is a simple to use graphic editing program that will have all the features discussed in the tutorial.

Downloading and installing GIMP
Click this link to download GIMP for your PC!

Once you have downloaded the file, locate it on your desktop (or wherever it has been saved) and double click on the .exe. Follow the installation instructions displayed by the wizard and you are all set.

Editing an image

Now that you have installed and opened up GIMP on your PC, it is time to edit a large image and shrink it down to the right size for our cell phone wallpaper. This is done in a few easy steps.

Step 1:
In the upper right corner of the GIMP interface you will need to click on the word “File”. Immediately you will see a list of options appear. Choose the one named “Open”. You will be presented with an explorer window through which you can navigate to the image you would like to change into a wallpaper for your phone.

Once you have found the desired image, click the “Open” button in the bottom right corner of the explorer window.

This is what you will see:

In order to scale your image you must click on the “Scale” tool in the toolbar panel. With the tool selected, simply click on your image. You will notice a dialog box appears. In this dialog box you will enter the height and width associated with your cell phone resolution. As you enter the values, you will notice that you are given a preview of what your image will now look like. Click the “Scale” button to complete the transformation.

Step 3:
We need to create a new document in the size of our scaled image, then copy and paste our scaled image into the new document. This sounds complicated, but it really is not.

First you need to click on the scaled image, then press CTRL+C to copy it to the clipboard. Now press CTRL+N to create a new document. In the dialog box that appears, enter the height and width you have determined suits your cell phone resolution. Click the “OK” button to create the new document.

Once the new document has been created it is time to paste our image into it and save it with a .jpg extension.

To do this, simply click once inside the blank space in the new document and press CTRL+V to paste the image we have previously saved to the clipboard into the new, properly sized document.

This is our new wallpaper folks. It is now time to save the new cell phone wallpaper to your desktop.

step 4:
Click the word “File” in the top left corner of the new document window. From the list of options presented, choose “Save as”.

A new box will appear. Enter the desired name for your cell phone wallpaper in the Name field and select the appropriate destination folder to save your image in.

We want to save our wallpaper as a .jpg file. You will have to expand the “file type” area and scroll down until you see the JPEG option. Click on JPEG and then click on the “Save” button in the lower right corner of the window.

You now have your very own custom wallpaper for your cell phone! I hope this tutorial has been of some help. If you are following along at home and get stuck, just send me a note in the comments and I will help you figure out where you went wrong.

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