MaximumPC 2006 06

And the Winner Is...

BATTERY LIFE

AND SCREEN

Surprisingly, we didn’t have any com-

plaints with either device’s battery life—

at least as long as we left the Pocket

PC phone’s integrated Wi-Fi adapter

disabled. The Pocket PC phone lasted

three full days without a charge dur-

ing normal use, while the smartphone

made it to four; both phones charge

(and sync) using a standard four-pin

mini-USB connector.

The screens on these two devices

are remarkable. Both sport resolutions

of 320x240, although the Pocket PC

phone’s screen is a touch larger (2.2-

inches versus 2.8-inches). Colors are

great, and both scale reasonably well.

WINNER: SMARTPHONE

INTERNET AND EMAIL

When you’re used to browsing the Internet on a high-resolution display,

moving to a tiny portable screen can be a shock. So it’s not much of a surprise that neither

of these devices is great for web browsing, but they both work very well with many of the

online RSS aggregator services. Email and IM are a different story, however.

While the smartphone fared relatively well for our calendar and address book, its

telephone keypad just doesn’t cut it for writing emails of more than a few words. Sure, the

PDA phone’s keyboard is annoying, but it’s still better than using the smartphone’s T9 pad.

We experienced a few hiccups with Cingular’s Xpress Mail service using both phones—

neither was as easy to configure as a Blackberry.

For instant messaging, the smartphone’s keypad isn’t as much of a weakness,

because we’re less concerned about pesky punctuation and capitalization rules. Still, this

category has to go to the PDA phone.

WINNER: PDA PHONE

PDA PHONE: CINGULAR 8125,

http://www.cingular.com, $350 sans contract

head 2 head TWO TECHNOLOGIES ENTER, ONE TECHNOLOGY LEAVES

I

t’s worth noting some of the nifty features these phones have in

common: The high-speed EDGE cellular data service kicks ass. It

won’t be confused with a broadband connection, but browsing and

always-on access for email and IM are very handy. Both phones also

let you install a 1GB MiniSD card to store documents, applications, or

media files. You can even save photos and video directly to the card

with the phones’ integrated 1.3-megapixel cameras.

Still, the clear winner is Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone. It offers

a great balance of convenient size and the core functionality we

demand from a PDA. Sure, the smartphone is incapable of fancy hand-

writing recognition and is more limited than a full-fledged PDA, but we

love the simple interface, easy access to key information, and the fact

that this smartphone is a good phone first, rather than a PDA with a

phone soldered onto it. We’re very impressed.

Nevertheless, there’s definitely a place for PDA phones. Although

Cingular’s push email service has some bugs, the keyboard and touch

screen combo gives you a versatile device in a belt-friendly formfactor.

It gives PDA addicts an opportunity to lighten their load by ditching

their cellphones.

round^4

round^5

JUNE 2006 MA XIMUMPC 17