Smart Phones Get Smarter
Just about every cell phone maker now offers a PDA phone--and my, how they've grown. No longer just workhorses for high-powered professionals, PDA phones offer more versatility than ever, with many models boasting a high-quality camera, media players, and full-color Web browsing capabilities.
We looked at the latest crop of PDA phones to see which ones were at the top of their game. But what separates a regular cell phone from a PDA phone, anyway? Many cell phone vendors claim that their offerings are "smart phones," meaning phones that can access e-mail. For our review, however, we set out some basic criteria that each phone had to meet. First, it had to come with a full QWERTY keyboard (which meant that some impressive devices such as the BlackBerry Pearl failed to make the cut); second, it had to run an operating system capable of supporting at least some basic productivity applications.
PDA phones have a huge range of capabilities, and selecting a handset means weighing the features you care about most. First consider how well the device handles calls. PDA phones are bigger and bulkier than standard cell phones, but they should still be comfortable to hold against your ear. Also look for a device that meets your needs. If you want to edit documents, don't buy a BlackBerry; it lets you view documents, but its OS has no editing applications. And don't forget that some QWERTY keyboards are roomier than others.
High-speed data access, commonly known as third-generation or 3G service, is yet another important issue to weigh. The technology can provide transfer rates of 350 kilobits per second or more, approaching wired-broadband speeds. This kind of performance can be crucial if you send large files via e-mail or spend a lot of time browsing the Web on your phone. Sprint's and Verizon's 3G network is called EvDO, while Cingular's is known as HSDPA. Both Cingular and T-Mobile offer EDGE service--a 2.5G data network (not a true 3G service) that commonly reaches about 100 kbps.
Put simply, some phones are built for work, and others for play. Be sure to choose accordingly.
Nokia E62
This newcomer to the PDA phone scene has quickly emerged as a top contender thanks to a bevy of features and an impressive keyboard. Available from Cingular, this handset lacks high-speed HSDPA support (though it does support EDGE) and has a few interface quirks, but it's one of the most capable PDA phones on the market.
The biggest draw of the E62 is its roomy keyboard: It's one of the most spacious arrangements I've ever seen on a candy-bar handset, with wide, flat keys that are beautifully sized and spaced. Setting up e-mail is a breeze, the E62 handles attachments with aplomb, and its included office suite lets you view and edit documents easily.
As a phone, the E62 is on the quiet side, so you may have trouble hearing your callers. Dialing is easy, however, and the unit is comfortably light to hold. Talk-time battery life is excellent, reaching the 10-hour maximum in
My few complaints center on features that the E62 lacks: It has no camera and no 3G service. The Symbian OS is surprisingly sluggish, too; I found myself hitting commands several times, thinking that the button presses hadn't registered, when in reality the E62 was just processing them slowly.
Otherwise, it's a stellar little device. Factor in its reasonable $200 price (Note: All prices in this story are with a two-year contract, before any rebates), and the E62 comes out number one on our chart.
Motorola Q
It's almost inconceivable that a handset as svelte as the Motorola Q could be a fully functioning PDA phone, and an awfully good one at that.
This $200 phone weighs a mere 4.2 ounces and is just 1.45 inches thick, and it slips into practically any pocket. It's easy on the eyes, too, with a bright 2.5-inch display and a 1.3-megapixel camera. Its keyboard--which ranks among the best QWERTY thumb-keyboards I've ever used--feels spacious.
The unit's familiar thumbwheel makes navigating through long e-mail messages and Web pages a breeze. Unfortunately, the Q lacks key office applications that other phones provide, so you'll have to upgrade if you intend to edit documents while you're on the road. Without Wi-Fi, the Q relies on Verizon's EvDO network to send bits, but to me this 3G network felt terribly slow in actual use.
As a phone, the Q is easy to hold and simple to dial, but its speaker is fairly quiet. Talk-time battery life was mediocre in our formal tests, at just 5 hours, 38 minutes. Nevertheless, for users who want access to e-mail without incurring the bulk of a business-focused device, the Q is worth a look.
Nokia E70At first glance the Nokia E70 doesn't look like a PDA phone at all: It's an unassuming candy-bar-style handset, with a smallish screen and a tiny numeric keypad. But flip the keypad up, and the E70 reveals its hidden charms--namely, a unique QWERTY keyboard, half of which falls on the right of the screen and the other half on the left.
Overall, the E70's audio quality is about average, and dialing with the miniature buttons on the keypad can be tricky. Talk-time battery life in our tests was quite impressive, at 9 hours, 52 minutes.
But the Symbian-based E70 is more than a cell phone. Its spacious keyboard invites delving into the device's substantial data features. The handset offers standard e-mail support, a full collection of Symbian's office-document viewers and editors, and Web browsing (via GPRS/EDGE or Wi-Fi).
The phone has a full complement of entertainment features, too. The included MP3 player works perfectly well, but the 2-megapixel camera is the real standout, producing excellent images.
Unfortunately, the Symbian OS isn't up for all the things this phone wants to do. Screen refreshes took ages, and switching applications was slow. Even worse: The unit has no HSDPA 3G support.
The E70 is compatible with Cingular and T-Mobile networks, but neither carrier offers it yet. An unlocked handset will cost you $450.
T-Mobile Dash
Focused more on fun than on work, the sleek T-Mobile Dash is a device designed to appeal to the Sidekick set. Though it resembles the Motorola Q, this candy-bar-style phone is rubberized, rounded, and in general made friendlier for riding along in a pocket when you hit the road.
Unfortunately, the Dash lacks some key software components. The handset includes Wi-Fi, and its e-mail works well, but it has little in the way of office applications, bundling only the ClearVue suite for viewing--but not editing--documents. Typing on the cramped keyboard is tricky, too, as the tiny buttons feel mashed together.
As an entertainment-oriented gadget, the Dash is a hit, with a standout media player and a microSD expansion slot so you can add music to the device. But as a phone, despite lasting 10 hours in our battery tests, it has faults. Calls are loud and clear, but dialing them is difficult: Unlike every other smart phone, the Dash lacks an on-screen dialpad for dialing digits by their letter alternatives. Whoops!
T-Mobile Sidekick 3
Hollywood's "it" phone is now in its third revision. The Sidekick 3 packs an impressive set of features, headlined by a suite of easy-to-use e-mail, text messaging, and Web browsing applications.
As a phone, the Sidekick 3 is a bit bulky and difficult to hold for long, and you have to flip it open to dial a call. But its speaker is clear and loud. The Sidekick 3 turned in an excellent talk-time battery life of 9 hours in our lab tests. Navigating with the unit's light-up trackball is a pleasure--you may never want to use a thumbwheel again.
Features new to the Sidekick 3 include a music player (which handles only MP3 files) and a faster CPU. The camera has been upgraded to a resolution of 1.3 megapixels, and you can expand storage beyond the included 64MB via a miniSD card.
Ultimately, the Sidekick 3's Achilles' heel is attributable to T-Mobile: In lieu of a genuine 3G network, the company continues to offer its roughly 120-kbps EDGE network as its fastest service. Compared with phones that use a 3G network, the Sidekick 3 feels dated (and decidedly slower). And lacking Wi-Fi, the $350 phone gives you no way to bypass the cell network to take advantage of the device's otherwise sweet Internet capabilities. It's too bad, because the performance shortcomings really hamstring the Sidekick 3's usefulness.
Palm Treo 700wx
In late 2006, Palm's Treo 700w received a quiet upgrade to the 700wx, which has the same design and runs the same OS but contains enhancements under the hood. Most notable is the RAM upgrade: With 48MB after a hard reset, the 700wx (available from Sprint) gives the user double the amount of program memory that the 700w does, which goes a long way toward making the new Treo quicker to refresh screens and generally more responsive.
My few criticisms of this device, like my gripes about other Windows Mobile-based Treos, revolve around the unit's unintuitive interface and the excessive number of taps and button presses required to launch any program that isn't reachable from the Today home screen. The 700wx includes the usual complement of Mobile Office applications. You can handle e-mail perfectly serviceably through Mobile Outlook; but as with the 700w and other Treos, typing on the 700wx's keypad becomes an unpleasant chore because the keys are slightly too big, too stiff, and too close together.
The 700wx resembles other Treos in its phone capabilities. Its voice quality is average, but it performs nicely as a speakerphone or with the included headset. With a talk time of 5 hours, 28 minutes in our lab test, the 700wx's battery life is subpar, but similar to that of other Treos we've tested.
At $500, the 700wx carries the same price as the 700w. Of the two, I definitely prefer the 700wx.
Palm Treo 700p
If you're a fan of the Palm OS, you don't have many options in PDA phones--basically, your choice is between the Treo 700p and the Treo 680. (The Treo 680 wasn't ready in time for us to test it for this story, but for our full review of the device, see "A New Treo for the Masses.")
Years of refinement have molded the 700p into an intuitive and useful PDA phone. Setting up and accessing e-mail is painlessly simple, whether you are tapping at the screen with the stylus or using the navigation controls to get around. Only the lack of a thumbwheel makes the Treo at all frustrating to use, though people with large fingers may find the keyboard somewhat cramped.
Like all Treos, the 700p feels a bit unwieldy during extended conversations, but its audio quality is fine and the speakerphone is exceptional. Talk-time battery life is on the weak side, however, at just 4 hours, 59 minutes in our lab tests.
The great software bundle includes a trial version of Documents to Go for file viewing and editing, the Pocket Tunes music player, and more. Overall, the 700p is a great little--well, not
Is there such a thing as wireless overkill? Perhaps not, but the HP iPaq hw6920 seems to be putting that question to the test. It features compatibility not only with the GSM/GPRS/EDGE wireless standards but also with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS--a cool combination that could free you from ever again having to carry a multitude of gadgets all at once. Unfortunately, the poorly designed hw6920 still leaves much to be desired.
My biggest complaint: The handset provides no 3G support, restricting you to older and much slower GPRS or EDGE technology for your data connections--a situation that's almost inexcusable for a phone introduced in October 2006. (Wi-Fi is great as a backup, sure, but it's hardly ideal.)
Calls sounded somewhat less than clear, and the unit felt too wide to rest comfortably in my hand during voice calls. On the bright side, the hw6920 turned in outstanding talk-time battery life: In our lab tests we reached the cut-off point of 10 full hours without draining the battery completely.
The 3-inch screen is generously large but leaves plenty of room for a spacious keypad that's fairly easy to type on. The hw6920 runs Windows Mobile 5.1 and includes Mobile Office for viewing and editing office documents, GoodLink for syncing to enterprise networks, and Pocket Streets portable map software. At $360 with a two-year contract from Cingular, the hw6920 is not a terrible deal, but other phones provide nearly the same features (sans GPS) with far fewer operational problems.
RIM BlackBerry 8703e
RIM's business-oriented PDA phones have had the market sewn up since the release of the original Inter@ctive pager 950 in 1998. And today's BlackBerry 8703e is a finely honed business machine that few professionals can do without. (For a more entertaining BlackBerry, check out the Pearl.)
Put simply, the 8703e has all the features that a corporate user needs, with none of the frills that might annoy an IT administrator. Taking center stage is the impressive, intuitive e-mail system, which works with your personal e-mail, your business account (via a BlackBerry Enterprise Server), or a custom BlackBerry e-mail address.
You can view attachments in full, though you can't edit them. Typing on the (admittedly slightly cramped) QWERTY keyboard is easy. Available from Verizon Wireless for $350 with a two-year contract, the 8703e supports EvDO networks, ensuring fast e-mail access and Web browsing.
The 8703e is slightly bulky, but it's proportioned reasonably enough to make calling satisfactory. Voices came through loud and clear; a headset is included to deliver extra volume. With 5 hours, 43 minutes of talk time in our lab tests, the 8703e's battery life is passable, but hardly exceptional.
Though I missed having a camera and a media player (there's no expansion slot on this BlackBerry either), not every user wants or needs such frills. If your requirements--or your employees' needs--match its offerings, the 8703e is a solid selection.
Samsung IP-830wThe "I" in the name Samsung IP-830w stands for
The phone's most noteworthy flaw is its difficult design. The bulky unit is a vertical slider model; when the slider is closed, you see only the 2.8-inch screen and some basic navigation controls. Opening the slider reveals the full QWERTY keyboard, but leaves a small ridge on each side of the keyboard. This creates an awkward border that makes certain key presses unnecessarily difficult.
As a phone, the IP-830w is again far from perfect. The built-in speaker sounds muffled, and the handset's hefty weight of 6.8 ounces (7.4 ounces with the extended battery) makes long calls tiring. You will want the extended battery, though: In our lab tests the phone eked out only 4 hours, 38 minutes of talk time even with that battery in service.
The Windows Mobile 5.1-based handset packs the Mobile Office suite for viewing and editing files. Though the device lacks a camera, it does have a standard photo viewer and video player. The phone includes high-speed EvDO support, too, which makes Web browsing fairly painless.
Perhaps the IP-830w's biggest drawback is its steep price: $600 with a two-year contract from Sprint. That's significantly more cash for significantly less phone than the nearest competitor.
Find the Very Latest PDA/Phones ChartFor the latest online PDA/Phone rankings or a comprehensive list of all cell phone & PDAs we've tested:
Christopher Null
