Most technology pundits see personal digital assistants and mobile phones as two sides of the same coin.
The much awaited-for Sony Ericsson P800, a PDA/phone hybrid first unveiled in March 2002, has taken over a year to hit the markets but it's been worth the wait.
A lot, lot of thought has gone into the design and technology of the P800, which makes it easily stand above its peer-competition for now.
At first take, the Sony Ericsson P800 has a slightly clunky size and weight, but scores well when compared with the dimensions of Handspring's Treo or the XDA.
In any case, it is far better than carrying both a PDA (like a Palm Pilot) and a cellphone.
Its ability to operate in two different modes is impressive. While resembling a normal cellphone -- and not a handheld radio set -- the P800 has a 'dumb flip' keypad, which when closed hides about three-fifth of the display.
In this mode, a jog-dial on the left side of the phone and buttons on the flip help navigate through various applications and features of the phone.
The buttons on the flip are quite 'dumb' in that they have plastic plungers which when pressed activate the touch screen below. I find this simple innovation very functional.
But the real P800 emerges when the flip has been opened to enable the touch screen and activate a more PDA-like navigation system.
The full-sized touch-screen display is slightly smaller than that of a dedicated PDA. This keypad can also be completely removed so that the P800 functions entirely as a pen-based device. When in this full-screen PDA mode, navigation is through a plastic stylus that is also interestingly designed: flat and slightly curved with a pointed end.
Sony Ericsson has packed in a whole arsenal of features into the P800. The formidable array includes Bluetooth, triple-band (GSM 800/900/1900) technology, a 4,096-colour display, and a 300,000-pixel camera, music and video player, recorder, a sophisticated contacts manager and calendar, besides, of course, Internet access.
The camera application, called Communicam, is not best in its class although it allows for several tweaking options.
Poorly lit frames, for instance, don't render themselves on the P800. Using the default settings, the phone can store approximately 200 pictures in its internal memory, or approximately half of that at the highest level of quality.
Images stored in the P800's photo album are available for other applications to use: you can save a friend's picture along with her number and watch the image flash on your screen each time you receive a call from her or drag the picture of into a photo editor to add sound and/or text before sending it as an MMS (multimedia message service) message.
I found the Internet access and MMS services top class. Enabled for GPRS (general packet radio service, a mobile phone technology that affords high-speed Internet access), the P800 takes full advantage of the PDA screen to deliver a great Internet experience.
My surfing experience was a little cramped given limitations of the GPRS service I had access to, but applications like mail delivery are compelling. MMS access is cool too.
There are no major downsides to the P800 except that it runs on Symbian 7.0 software, which hangs on you once a while (five times over a trial period of a week). If that happens you have to remove the battery to reboot the phone.
The user interface can be a little quirky at times when you get lost in the phone and are left searching for a way forward.
The price, as you'd expect, is steep. The phone sells at a shade less than Rs 40,000 a piece if you buy it direct from a Sony Ericsson retailer, but could be lower if you pick it up bundled from a mobile phone service provider.
Josey Puliyenthuruthel works with content company perZuade. His views are personal and may not be endorsed by his employers, the company's investors, customers or vendors.
