T-Mobile MDA Pro

This highlights another problem: battery life. Listening to music and browsing the Internet simultaneously, we found the MDA Pro fell from 99 per cent to 85 per cent after half an hour. It doesn't retain its charge too well if just left alone either: it dropped from 66 per cent to 40 per cent in the course of 24 hours.

At least the nightmare of losing all your data just because it runs out of juice is now history. The MDA Pro uses flash memory for both ROM and RAM, so even if you left it in a drawer for three years your details will still be there. The other bonus is that the MDA Pro can charge over USB.

In palmtop mode, there are surprisingly few shortcut buttons available. You can accept or reject calls via buttons on the left-hand side, but otherwise you're limited to activating the camera or voice dial.

But let's make one thing clear: this isn't a small device. It towers over a standard Pocket PC and dwarfs a mobile phone; at 22mm thick and weighing 286g, it won't fit easily into trouser pocket and will create an unsightly bulge in a jacket. It's not the most natural phone anyway: you'll get some strange glances when you clamp the MDA Pro to your ear. That said, voice quality is perfectly good whether you use it with the supplied hands-free kit or not.

The final fact to note is that T-Mobile isn't alone in selling this design. You can even buy it as the i-mate Jasjar from www.expansys.com without a contract, albeit for £690 inc VAT. So before you buy, take a close look at the contracts on offer to see which one best suits your needs.

Whatever the version, clearly the MDA Pro isn't for everyone. You'll need a concrete reason for such a large keyboard, as devices like HP's Mobile Messenger also allow you to quickly dash off emails yet retain pocketability. And if you just need to view information, smartphones are a much more obvious choice. But if you'll take advantage of all the MDA Pro's skills, it's a well-executed device that offers unparallelled flexibility.

Author: Tim Danton