HTC Advantage X7500

The Windows interface would be too complex to use on this size of screen, but it is big enough to make you want more power and more features in your applications than a smaller smartphone. If this size of device proves popular, we expect to see more software that can take advantage of it.

The size means that it's not really practical to hold the Advantage up to your ear and make calls, but use the wired headset, a Bluetooth headset or the speakerphone plus voice dialling and it makes as good a phone as any other Windows Mobile device - good quality sound and your full address book to hand.

The Advantage doesn't fit neatly into any one category. It's is a similar size to portable video players like the Archos 605 WIFI - but with the A2DP Bluetooth headphone profile as well as a standard headphone jack it has more audio options and you can use it for presentations, productivity apps, making phone calls and surfing over 3G as well as entertainment and wireless Web browsing. You could do most of this on a smaller smartphone, but the beauty of the Advantage is the large screen and excellent keyboard. You could buy a laptop for the unsubsidised price of the Advantage: you wouldn't get something this small with this much battery life (over eight hours of solid use or five hours of phone calls, up to three days of occasional use including push email) but you could run real Windows applications. Intel is promising ultraportable Linux devices this size but they won't be on the market for some time and there's already a full range of Windows Mobile applications.

With improved email and much more powerful Mobile Office applications in Windows Mobile 6 and new software like the satellite navigation software CoPilot 7, you can get real work done almost anywhere on the Advantage. Add a Bluetooth keyboard and you don't have to have tiny fingers. But you're paying a high price for portability that not everyone needs.