The P526 is an affordable PDA phone that goes head-to-head with the Sony Ericsson P1i and Nokia E61i. The handset’s design is very similar to its high-end sibling, the P750. The  P526 is well-proportioned, and feels more comfortable to hold than Nokia’s E61i. The P526 doesn’t have a joystick, and completely relies on the touch screen for navigation, which isn’t very intuitive. The soft menu buttons and two dedicated buttons are in the form of a small thin strip, and are difficult to operate. The keypad is well spaced, and offers good tactile feedback.The P526 is also comes bundled with the necessary applications-Mobile Word, Excel and Powerpoint. PIM functions include a Meeting Time Planner, Remote Presenter, Voice commander, business card recognition and Java support. The phone also includes GPS, but the corresponding software needs to be installed separately. Audio quality is so-so, and can’t match the Nokia E61i or Sony Ericsson P1i. The 2 megapixel camera delivers decent photographs, but only in well-lit rooms. Outdoors, it performs like any other 2 megapixel camera; good exposure and consistent colour accuracy. The phone comes with 128 MB of internal memory, and that can be increased via the microSD card. Internet browsing on GPRS was slow, but that’s more of a provider issue. No WiFi is a serious shortcoming; the competition has it, and they also have the newer Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, while the P526 just has version 1.2. The ASUS P526 has good signal reception, and  we had no problem with dropped calls or static. Voice clarity was good, and the battery survived for two days on 45 minutes of talk, GPRS usage and tinkering around with GPS. To summarise, the ASUS P526 performs well, comes pre-installed with useful applications and has loads of features but misses out on essentials such as WiFi. If you want an affordable touch screen PDA phone, then the ASUS P256 fits the bill. However, also consider Nokia  E61i and Sony Ericsson P1i as viable options.

The Moto Q marks Motorola’s entry into the highly-competitive PDA cell phone market. The company has earlier tried getting into this market via their A series of phones (Moto Ming), but failed to garner any footing. For the Moto Q, Motorola has gone with the tried-and-tested design for a QWERTY phone. It is wide but well proportioned,and therefore feels much better to hold when compared with Nokia’s E61/61i. Lessons learnt from the RAZR have been used to good effect on the Moto Q; the phone is slim for a PDA phone. Finished in jet black, the exterior has arubberised feel, and the body offers excellent grip. Except for the navigational D-pad, all the buttons are flat and at times difficult to press. The QWERTY keypad offers excellent tactile feedback and equals that of those on high-end PDAs such as those from Blackberry and Palm. The 320 x 240, 2.4-inch, 65K colour screen seems dated; the Nokia E61 has had a 16 million colour screen for a long time. The Moto Q has an anaemic 40 MB of internal memory, which can be augmented via the bundled 1 GB mini SD card. The Moto Q runs on Windows Mobile 6, and the user interface is zippy. By default, the Moto Q uses Motorola’s theme, but we prefer the Windows theme. The Today screen can be customized to show events such as meetings and birthdays, as well as e-mails and text messages. The “Documents To Go” application comes preinstalled, and it’s great; it ably handles Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and ZIP files. A default Windows file manager helps browsing the device effectively. System tools include a memory manager and a task manager. (The task manager is useful for when you need to know about background processes and kill them.) Multimedia features are mediocre; Windows Media Player can be used for MP3s and video. The 1.3MP camera is strictly okay; the photographs are passable, and video capture is jerky. Connectivity options include USB, Bluetooth, IR, GPRS, and EDGE. Motorola has been generous with the bundle: a portable adapter, a good-quality leather pouch, a headset, the USB cable, the 1 GB miniSD card, and two batteries. The higher-capacity batter is fatter and requires a different battery cover, which also comes bundled.

The ASUS P750 is top-of-the-line, 3G capable PDA phone that has every possible feature you’d ever want. The design is gorgeous, and the phone looks great in its matt black outfit. Though oriented towards executives, the P750 lacks a QWERTY keypad; it does have touch screen, which in combination with Windows Mobile 6 makes up for the lack. There are five input options available, and the XT9 option works like a charm-it can predict words better than the old T9 dictionary most other cell phones have. The 320 x 240, 2.6-inch touch screen is good; it lacks brilliance (only 65K colours) but it works. The joystick and jog dial have excellent tactile feedback, and they never jump a menu. The alpha-numeric keypad is well spaced out and works out great for typing short messages. The P750 comes loaded with an abundance of pre-installed applications-Microsoft Office 6.1, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Notes and Calendar, is the highlight. The P750 also features GPS, a business card reader, UR time home screen, Remote presenter, Java, ASUS launcher, etc.-this phone is a treasure trove.  The media player supports MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+ and 3GP. The audio quality is good, considering that this is a business phone. The onboard 3 megapixel camera delivers reasonably good photographs , provided there is adequate light; video recording is passable. The phone comes with 65 MB of memory, which can be augmented to up to 2 GB via the microSDHC slots. Internet browsing was relatively fast, and setting up WiFi network is smooth, without any hiccups. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth, GPRS, HSDPA and USB. ASUS has been generous with the bundle- nice leather pouch, USB cables, adapter, in-car phone cradle, and a box full of manuals. The P750 performed admirably. The signal reception was good; in low reception areas calls weren’t dropped. Voice clarity is great, and the speakerphone is loud and clear. On nominal usage-45 minutes of talking, some Internet access and music-the phone stayed alive for three days.

The Treo 750 is the latest PDA phone from Palm; it promises one-handed operation (a Palm trait), though it’s a  windows Mobile based device. The phone has a lot in common with its predecessors on the design front, and it has the distinctive Palm device feel to it-nice! The new phone is tad slimmer than its predecessors; it feels lighter, and the curvaceous design helps hide the bulk. The 2.5-inch LCD screen dominates the front. It is sharp and completelylegible in direct sunlight. The navigational console (buttons) consists of a five-way rocker, two soft keys, and four additional pre-defined keys (Call, Windows key, Hang up, and OK). The dinky QWERTY thumb-board still remains one of the best we’ve seen thus far; though small and cramped, the chances of mistyping are very low. The phone is powered by Window Mobile Version 6; given that the phone runs a 300 MHz processor, this may not have been a smart choice-Windows Mobile version 6 requires a speedy processor. As available memory goes, the Treo 750 is anaemic, and Windows’ dodgy memory management doesn’t help either. Palm has done its bit to revamp the interface and make it easy to navigate without touching the stylus-something we really like about Palm devices. The “Today Screen” shows information such as messages, e-mail, voicemail, appointments, and more upfront; each of them can be accessed using just the navigation keys. To place a call, a contact name can be directly keyed infrom within the Today Screen. On the performance front, the phone is no slouch; the UI is generally zippy-applications open in a snap. We did encounter some instances when the phone nearly crawled when a lot of applications were open, but then no-one opens too many applications simultaneously in a realworld situation. We encountered no signal issues, and voice clarity was good with no background noise or echo. The speakerphone quality is good, too; however, the ringer volume needs improvement. The camera quality is average. At Rs 22,990, the Treo 750 is expensive considering that competing models offer a better feature set at a lower price. Palm is giving away a foldable Bluetooth keyboard along with this phone, but that still doesn’t justify the price. Nevertheless, discounting the high price, the Treo 750 is a good Windows-based PDA phone.

If you are an executive in the market for a cell phone, Nokia’s E series offers the best bang for the buck. The E51 has a superb 2-inch display capable of 16 million colours. The resolution of 240 x 320 is very high for a small screen, so fonts appear sharp and crisp. In direct sunlight, the screen is completely legible-even at half the maximum  rightness! As compared to the E50, the new phone has a completely revised keypad with dedicated keys for contacts, Calendar, E-mail, and Home.This approach has its advantages: you can directly access essential information at thetouch of a button. The soft menu keys, however, are a pain to use-they are too small for comfort. The keypad is a delight to use-good tactile feedback, and the key spacing is immaculate. The rubberised keys for volume up down, push to talk, and the power switch are hard to operate, and require some serious poking to work. The E51 is peppy-it uses the same processor as the flagship N95 model. With 130 MB of memory onboard, you can do lot of multitasking without the phone getting slow, and the memory can be expanded to 4 GB via the microSD slot. The E51 runs on Symbian OS S60, and crams in a lot of additional features. For example, the Advanced Call Manager lets you manage incoming and outgoing calls more efficiently. WorldMate, an application meant for frequent fliers, comes bundled too. The Nokia E51 has an abundance of connectivity options. It’s a 3G quad-band phone with HSDPA, WiFi (802.11g), Bluetooth, Micro USB, as well as infrared (just in case). The WiFi locator feature helps a great deal in searching for nearby WiFi hotspots. Multimedia features include an MP3 player (it sounds good), a 2MP camera with still and video shooting, and FM radio. The phone performed admirably during our tests; signal reception was good, and so was the voice clarity. Internet browsing was fast as compared to the E50 or E61, thanks to the revised Web browser. The pictures from the camera were above average, but not in low light. The speakerphone is clear, with little or no echo on the recipient’s side. The speaker is placed on the anterior side of the phone, and though it’s loud  enough, when it’s placed on softer surfaces such as a bed or sofa, the ringer volume gets muffled. Battery life is good-we got around three days with nominal usage and a terrific seven days of standby.

The N81 marks Nokia’s entry into music-related services similar to that offered by Apple (as in iTunes). Like the N73 and N95, the N81 comes in two editions-Standard and Music. The former has a memory card slot, while the latter has 8 GB of flash memory and no memory slot. The N81 is handsome-rounded edges, black lustrous finish, and you’ll notice the use of contrasting brushed silver on the edges. Build quality is excellent, and though the body has a plastic feel to it, it’s rugged, and should take the rigours of everyday life. The slider mechanism is taut, but we’ve seen better ones on Samsung phones (and lately, the Sony Ericsson W910i). The front facia is dominated bya huge,  arklingly-clear 2.4-inch display. The screen equals that on the N95 (which has the best among cell  phones).Just below the screen is a whole new navigational console. The directional pad (D-Pad) now also acts like a touch-sensitive scroll wheel, but the keys can also be used like regular keys. Though it works OK, the touch-sensitive scrolling needs refinement. The playback control keys are cramped near the D-pad and are frustrating. The alphanumeric keypad isn’t quite what we expected from Nokia; it is flat, hard, and frustrating to use. The music player is similar to that on the N95 and other Symbian-based phones. However, the Navi-scroll gives it an edge in terms ofusability. We’d like to see Nokia ironing out the  chinks in the touch-sensitive UI. Eight GB ofmemory means enough space to pack in your entire collection. Transfer times are reasonably fast. Audio quality is good, and nearly equalsthat of the N95; what we liked was the placement of the 3.5 mm jack-it’s on the top. The bundled earphones are good, but we liked our music with the Bose in-ear plugs. The camera is a complete let down, be warned:  just 2 megapixels doesn’t cut it anymore-at least not on a high-end phone. Three games come preinstalled-all of them demos. The games are based on the Ngage platform, and gaming is fun thanks to two additional keys and the excellent display. Internet browsing is great-thanks largely to the Web browser which is the best you’ll get on a handheld today. The Nokia N81 8 GB retails at Rs 19,400. That price is reasonable, but we feel the N95 is a much better overall device-we’d recommend it over the N81.

As much as common sense tells us to avoid slider phones for obvious reasons as in moving parts, wear and ear-they’re hot! The E65 is red-hot (literally), and it’s available in mocha, too. The entirely matte-finished body offers good grip, and it manages to also look classy. Red-russet brown really-might not appeal to all, but the soft contours are nice. With Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, EDGE, and more, the E65 is a business-oriented device with some artistic flair. The number keypad is well-laid-out with raised demarcations on each key, similar to the N95-but remember there’s no QWERTY. Keypad backlighting is good. The 2MP camera and the music player are pretty ordinary. Pop the hood and it’s a symbian S60 9.1 device. Quick Office has been provided, but it’s Word and Excel editing at its barest (document creation is out of the question). GPS software is bundled: it’ll work with any Bluetooth GPS device. There’s also a pretty nifty text-to-speech module that will read out data whose menus are placed in the Voice Aid folder.   Contacts can be read out, as can phone numbers, recent calls, and the time. You also get a voice assist while dialling, which will help in the event of miss dialling while in a hurry (only if you remember the number). Still, we think the software needs a lot of work to be decently functional. The phone is slow, though, especially while using the voice functions  which bespeaks low memory. Call quality is good, but not on par with some of the other Nokia phones  I have tested. Calls disconnect easily when signal strength is at one tower. At Rs 16,800, the E65 isn’t the definitive business phone that the E series label might indicate. A phone with very similar specifications and functions with a cheaper price tag comes to mind-the N80. But then all new phones are costly, and a couple of price.

The successor to the acclaimed N95, this new incarnation just got better all round. The navigational console has been completely revamped. The oblong buttons are easy to use, and the directional pad is much better than that on the N95. The extra chrome on the buttons could have been avoided, we think-it picks up finger smudges and is likely to peel off. The number keypad is well-laid-out, but the hard-touch keys, combined with the slightly raised surface, makes finger-pad touch-typing a pain. The music player is feature- rich-you can shuffle and repeat tracks,there’s a functional equaliser, and a visualization function too. Audio quality seems to have improved over the N95. Music quality is decent on the supplied earplugs, and this phone is just great with better earphones! Sony Ericssonstill rules the game with their Walkman series of phones, though. The 5MP camera is another first-great image quality and a good flash unit. However, like all cell phone cameras, the zoom is useless. The lens cover you see on the N95 has been dropped in this new incarnation-and that’s not something we approve of. Image quality is similar to that on the N95. The camera performs admirably outdoors; colour saturation is perfect, and so is the exposure.Indoors, in low-light conditions, the focus tends to hunt for a while, and tonal accuracy suffers as well. The phone comes with 160 MB of internal memory, which is well-supplemented by 8 GB of flash memory. No expansion is   available for memory cards, but it’s not required. There’s a fully-functional GPS application inbuilt. This works well in conjunction with a GPRS connection.WiFi (g) is inbuilt, as is the mandatory Bluetooth (version 2.0, now with A2DP), and the jurassic infrared. For the radio fan, the N95 8 GB Incorpo rates FM radio. The new N95 8GB comes with higher-capacity batteries that extend its life by two hours over the N95. With nominal use, we got around two days of battery (45 minutes of talking, 2 hours of listening  to music, and intermittent GPRS use). In conclusion, the Nokia N95 8 GB is a superb convergent device. Be it music, camera, GPS, or Internet connectivity, it just does everything better than most devices on the market.

The K850i is the flagship model in the Cybershot line-up from Sony-Ericsson. Based around a 5-megapixel camera, it’s pitted against Nokia’s N95 as far as the camera is concerned. The K850i comes in at a notch above the K810i.The phone sports a completely revamped design, with hardly any resemblance to earlier SE models. It is blocky, but the fit and finish are excellent. A nice, luminous green strip runs around the edge. The navigational D-pad is a squarish ring that surrounds the 2 and 5 number keys. The edges are raised for proper contact. There is no actionbutton; rather, there are touch-sensitive buttons just below the screen. They are context-sensitive and are  dynamically assigned the proper functions, similar to soft menu buttons. The touchsensitive buttons work flawlessly, but require some time to get used to. The backlight at times seems overpowering, and distracts. The keypadconsists of small square buttons-usable, but no fun when texting. The camera is at the back, and the lenses have their own retracting cover. A hard plastic sheet is drawn over the length of the phone, covering the lens. It protects the shiny back of the phone, but also attracts fingerprints; when clicking, you’ll need to clean the portion near the lens. The K850i is designed to deliver a digitalcamera- like experience, and it doesn’t disappoint. The camera controls have evolved over the  K810i, and the ergonomics are much better. Since the K850i doesn’t have any additional dedicated buttons, most settings can be changed from the single touch-sensitive button. Camera performance was  superb; colour accuracy is pretty impressive-better than that on the N95. The K850i feels snappier throughout; it starts in an instant, file saves are  fast, and it switches back to the phone in a second. Indoors, the camera has a tendency to underexpose if the flash is used. The K850i comes with 40 MB of internal memory, and a 512 MB MS micro card comes bundled, but with a 5 megapixel camera and music, you’ll have to buy more memory. Musicwise,the phone is on par with the K810i, and it betters the N95, but can’t match any of the W series phones. Priced at Rs 21,000, the K850i is 10K cheaper than the Nokia N95. It misses out on GPS and WiFi, but it has a much better camera and music player, and longer battery life. Let’s just say the K850i fits the bill if you want a good smartphone with an excellent camera.

The K810i comes from Sony Ericsson’s Cybershot series. The 3.2-megapixel camera sensor is what differentiates this phone from  the crowd and from other SE phones. The 810i is aimed at causal shutterbugs, and has some

neat features that should go down well with that audience. The translucent body with steel buttons gives the phone its unique appearance. The phone is quite long, but is comfortable to hold. The back cover is finished in rubberised material, and that gives the phone excellent grip, which is good for clicking snaps.

The navigational keys are similar to those on older SE phones such as the K750i. The joystick is much better, though, and well-recessed. The soft menu keys and additional shortcuts keys are small and tightly placed; this could turn out to be a problem for some. The keypad is well-spaced-out, and consists of little round keys-much better than those on the K550i or the W880i. At first sight, the keypad might seem uncomfortable, but you’ll find it’s not. The 3.2MP camera is well-protected by asliding lens cover. Being a Cybershot, it has one-touch shortcut keys to change flash modes, timer, Macro, and megapixel rating. One row of the keypad has the appropriate markings, and gets highlighted when camera mode is activated.

There are two buttons near the top, for changing the shooting mode and scenes. The Auto-focus works well and locks on the subject immediately, but in low light, it takes a while. There is a reasonably powerfulxenon flash to light up the subject. Performance is quite what you’d expect from a 3- megapixel camera. Colours, sharpness, and detail were perfect; more importantly, the shooting experience is great. The K810i can play music too, and the quality is above average; it can’t match that of the Walkman series, though. Further, the bundled earphones are the regular ones (which come with entry-level Sony-Ericsson phones), not the Fontopias. The K810i supports MSmicro memory cards; though SE has bundled 128 MB, it might not be enough if you plan to carry music and click photographs at 3 megapixels. We had no issues with the phone performance; signal reception was good, and so was the voice clarity. Battery life is okay expect around two days unless you plan to surf the Internet and use Bluetooth a lot.