Nokia 9300

Nokia is giving business users something to write home about with its new 9300 smart phone--literally. Reminiscent of the Nokia 9290 Communicator in looks, the Nokia 9300 flips open to reveal a spacious QWERTY keyboard and an ample internal color display for on-the-go note taking and messaging. And as a corporate-centric phone, it has support for multiple e-mail accounts and Bluetooth, and it runs Symbian OS 7. The 9300 will be available in the first quarter of 2005 in two triband versions: one for Europe and Asia (GSM 900/1800/1900) and one for the Americas (GSM 850/1800/1900).


Upside: Aimed squarely at corporate citizens, the Nokia 9300's features won't disappoint, with its built-in office apps for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, as well as a PDF viewer. The handset also has a whopping 80MB of free user memory (compared to the Sony Ericsson 910's 64MB and the Treo 600's 32MB), so you'll have plenty of room to store contacts, appointments, and more; if that's still not enough, there's an MMC slot for expanding memory up to 2GB. Other features include an integrated speakerphone, five-way conference calling, an MP3 and multimedia player, an infrared port, a Web browser, and USB connectivity. For frequent messengers, there's e-mail support (IMAP4, POP3, SMTP, SyncML, and BlackBerry Connect) and text, instant, and multimedia messaging.

Downside: With so many goodies packed inside the Nokia 9300, it's no surprise the handset is a little on the bulky side. At 5.2 by 2 by 0.8 inches and 5.9 ounces, the lengthy mobile will need some room, whether it rides shotgun on your hip or in your bag. Also, for such a full-featured phone, the 9300 has external and internal displays that are limited to 65,000 colors, though newer models support 262,000 shades. And shutterbugs are out of luck with the camera-shy 9300.

Outlook: Available in the first quarter of 2005 (pricing and carrier have not yet been determined), the Nokia 9300 will face tough competition from other office-savvy smart phones such as the P910, which carries the advantage of a sharper display and an integrated camera, and the sleekly designed Motorola A780.