CINGULAR PALM 750
The quad-band 750 improves upon its predecessor
the Palm 700 with a sleeker design that’s free of an
external antenna, but like that earlier model, the 750
features the Windows Mobile Pocket PC OS. And in
our opinion, if you want a Windows Mobile phone,
there are better choices.
If you’ve got to have a Palm with the
Windows OS, the 750 does
have a few things going for it:
The Palm formfactor makes
the device easy to use with
one hand, and the 1.3MP
camera takes acceptable
images. Since the device
runs Windows Mobile 5, you
can also view and edit Office
docs; however, you’ll be
doing so on a dull, 240x240
screen, which was a deal-
breaker for us.Not the best choice for a
Windows Mobile device.42 MAXIMUMPC JULY 2007
SMART
PHONE
STATE OFTHE UNION
BLACKBERRY 8703e
Lacking a camera and multimedia playback, the 8703e is
pretty bare-bones for a smartphone—if you want a device
that will keep you focused on work, this phone is for you.
And although it lacks any frills, this handset does excel at
messaging, via either BlackBerry’s proprietary app or third-
party clients.
It’s a bit chunky and the
all-plastic body won’t win any
design awards, but its size does
allow for a spacious, responsive
keyboard—the best of all we
tested. And for scrolling though
emails and messages, we find
the trackwheel preferable to
a touch screen and stylus. If
multimedia playback is important,
the newly released BlackBerry
8800—which is essentially a
full-keyboard Pearl—might be a
better bet, though, strangely, it
also lacks a camera.If all you want is
email and text mes-
saging, the 8703e
will get the job done.SAMSUNG HELIO HEAT
Perhaps we’re slowly turning into Grandpa Simpson, but the
Heat initially left us feeling alone and confused. Simply making
a call was unintuitive and working through the unclear menu
with the unresponsive electrostatic touchpad had us on the
verge of dropping the device from our roundup entirely. But
we slowly warmed up to what had at one time irritated us. We
became addicted to the H.O.T. feature,
which streamed headlines from SI.com
and other websites to our handset. We’re
also intrigued by the Buddy Beacon fea-
ture, which allows friends to see where
you are (and vice versa) via the phone’s
GPS. Still, this handset lacks a solid feel
and has an almost disposable quality to
it. And while we enjoyed some of its fea-
tures, the Heat seems like more of a toy
than a smartphone.
Helio doesn’t own its own towers but
instead leases network space from Sprint.
Its All-In memberships include unlimited
data and run from $65 for 500 minutes of
talk time to $135 for 2,500 minutes.The Heat is, most
certainly, not on.CINGULAR 3125
We love this dual-screen flip-phone’s design and rugged
build, in particular the metallic keypad and the ridged
exterior, which makes it easy to hold. When
closed, a screen on the front can display
a variety of information, such as the
time and battery power, or track infor-
mation for audio files. We also like that
forward, back, play, and pause func-
tions are available without opening the
phone. The interior screen is bright
and its 240x320 resolution is higher
than the Palm 750’s. As with other
phones that run the Windows Mobile
Smartphone OS, you can view, but
not edit, docs. The 1.3MP camera
and video recorder also took rea-
sonably good images in our tests.
With so much going for it, we found
the lack of 3G to be a disappoint-
ment, though.This tiny but rugged
flip-phone won our
durability award.1.8"3.6"2.3"4.4"2.7"4.3"2 "3.8"$285, http://www.helio.com 6
PROVIDER: HELIO$450, http://www.blackberry.com 7
PROVIDERS: SPRINT, VERIZON$350, http://www.cingular.com 7
PROVIDER: CINGULAR$400, http://www.palm.com 6
PROVIDER: CINGULARVERDICT VERDICTVERDICT
VERDICT