As the digital age marches on, smart phones are becoming more sophisticated, and offering more features at a more affordable price. The cellular phone has become an indispensable tool for the business traveler, and is increasingly relied on for tasks way beyond phone calls. Contacts management, word processing, email, Web surfing, and even GPS are rapidly becoming standard fare for smart phones. If you're still only using your phone for making and receiving calls, you're missing out on a fast-rising wave of cell phones becoming digital Swiss army knives.
HTC Touch Cruise (unlocked)
$499, www.htc.com/us/
GPS-enabled smart phones are all the rage these days, to the point where cellular phones are used for navigation almost as much as communication. The Touch Cruise from HTC is a revamp of an earlier version of the same phone released in 2007. The new model includes a slimmer design, and geotagging software called HTC Footprints, which allows you to geotag photos you take with the Touch Cruise's 3.2 megapixel camera. Notes and audio clips can be added to these photos, creating digital "postcards." These postcards are then saved with location data, enabling you to retrace your steps at the touch of a button. The North American version of the Touch Cruise comes with U.S. maps and CoPilot Live navigation software.
Nokia E63-2 (unlocked)
$229, www.nokiausa.com/
In a bit of a departure from Nokia's
E Series of smartphones that were typically aimed at and priced for business users, the E63 has nearly all of the functions of its pricier counterparts, with a lower price point. The E63 features a full QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, and email capabilities. One interesting feature is the ability to switch between Personal mode and Business mode at the click of a button. Also featured is a mircoSD slot that holds memory cards up to 8gb, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, allowing you to use standard headphones.
The Nokia E63 is rated for a talk time of 11 hours.
RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 (T-Mobile)
$199 (with two-year contract), http://na.blackberry.com/
T-Mobile's BlackBerry Curve 8900 is a solidly-designed, sleek smartphone, which features a sharp 2.4-inch TFT LCD screen,
a full QWERTY keyboard, and full HTML web browsing that supports streaming media, including YouTube. One potential drawback is that the Curve 8900 does not utilize the 3G network. For browsing, you can either use Wi-Fi, or the EDGE network from T-Mobile. Included is an on-board GPS device, which displays maps and text-based turn-by-turn driving directions via the preloaded BlackBerry Maps application. You can also sync it with iTunes with the BlackBerry Media Sync program. The phone comes with 256mb of onboard memory, but is expandable to up to 16gb and is rated with 5.5 hours of talk time.
Palm Treo Pro (Sprint)
$199 (with two-year contract), www.palm.com/us/
The Treo Pro from Palm is targeted primarily for business users, but is well equipped with standard features that should satisfy most users. The Treo Pro comes equipped with standard smartphone features, including Web access on Sprint's EV-DO Rev. A network, which offers zippy speeds of up to 600Kbps-to-1.4Mbps for downloads, and upload speeds of 350Kbps-to-500Kbps. Smart dialing, conference calling, email, and text and multimedia messaging are also featured. While the onboard GPS only includes text directions, more advanced GPS features are available with the purchase of Sprint Navigation service, which is free to try for one day. You can purchase the service for $2.99 a day, or $9.99 a month for unlimited use.
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