Advantages: Big Screen, Easy to Use
Disadvantages: Battery life

...-Basics- To look at the MDA Vario II you have a very stylish and sleek mobile phone. Looking at my phone you have a large screen (2½” by 2”) in full clear colour with only minimal buttons underneath it, give it a gentle push to the side a full QWERTY keyboard is revealed with easy to use buttons whilst on the back you have a 2 mega pixel camera with a flash and mirror for self portraits. On the edges the phone has various short-cut buttons, a limitless scroll wheel, a memory card slot (microSD) and a stylus holder. Within the phone you have the basic platform of Windows Mobile 5, and within this you get a large amount of features including; Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, MSN messenger, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, an organiser, and many more. All of these are easy to use and can either be used... Read review

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Advantages: Look, Application, Handset Capabilitys, Expandable Memory
Disadvantages: Low Handset Memory,

...This is one of the best windows mobile devices I have used. It does lack the Wi-Fi that the o2 \"own branded\" XDA Orbit has, however they are all but similar if it were not for this fact. The addition of GPS makes the handset a very usable device, for example I have added Co-Pilot Satellite navigation and Google Maps which mean when me and my partner borrow a car once a year for our holiday, we never get lost. Email and Text message functions are similar to all windows mobile phones, that the T-Mobile MDA falls under, the on screen keyboard can be a little fiddly for sending text messages, so I would say this phone is not aimed at the texters out there, however once you get use to the onscreen keyboard its not bad at all. The one good feature that T-Mobile have added is an email set up assistant, which makes it really easy to set... Read review

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Advantages: All round PDA, compact
Disadvantages: Low battery Life for heavy use.

...My girlfriend recently upgraded her contract with T-Mobile, and in the process chose the MDA Vario II. I'm going to get one as soon as my current contract expires. Its that good. Whilst being larger than a normal phone its fairly compact for a PDA, which, in my opinion is a good thing. The screen has a good resolution, is bright, and I've never had any difficulty in seeing/reading anything from it. It comes with a large range of features on it - such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, MSN, a calculator, calender, and laods more. In addition to this you can add programs yourself. All you need to do is search the web for the "MIDlets" you want, and then either download them directly to you phone, or, if you want to download them to your PC, and then transfer them across to your phone to install them. With T... Read review

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Advantages: Unbeatable connectivity, intergrated keyboard, has full WM 5.0 OS, great camera, excellent build quality
Disadvantages: Battery life, screen attracts fingerprints

...For a good while I've been searching for the ideal mobile phone replacement. My current, (yet now replaced), Samsung D600 had more than served its purpose over the last 16 months or so and with myself being someone who enjoys getting a hold of the latest technology the MDA Vario II seemed an ideal choice.... ... so I bought one! Beforehand I had a Pocket PC of my own; an HP iPaq 2210 which ran Windows Mobile 2003 Premium Edition. The main purpose for wanting one of these was so I could have a computer with me at all times; whether I needed to write a quick document, compose an email, make a note of an appointment in my calendar or perhaps maybe to relax with a quick game... the downside to the 2210 was it had no true internet. It did have Bluetooth but no Wifi so any email I wrote was only sent once docked with my PC. I had... Read review

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Advantages: Multifunctional, great deals, user friendly - like a baby pc
Disadvantages: you look like you've got a toaster to your ear when you're on the phone

...I got one of these a couple of months ago. It has a camera (1.3) - in fact it has two, a user facing one and one for taking pictures in camera mode and a video camera. The screen is huge and touch sensitive and the keypad is good, you kind of adapt to a two handed thumb based method of typing very quickly. The operating system is just like on your pc. It has the massive advantage of automatically retrieving your pop3 emails at the intervals you state and it's easy to set up. Just copy your settings over from your pc and you're away. It usually just retrieves headers (the main details and a few lines of text) to give you an overview and then you can download any particular emails you want. The internet capability is very good, certainly the best by far I have seen on a phone/pda hybrid. The phone itself works from... Read review

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Advantages: Excellent grapics and business management capabilities
Disadvantages: Large and cumbersome. Missing the basics that come with most new phones.

...The T-Mobile Vario is in effect a smart phone incorporating a pocket PC with some interesting features. It was probably designed to try to counter the stronghold that the Blackberry had on the UK marketplace as a business machine capable of running an appointment diary, accessing the internet, sending and receiving emails and of course being used as a mobile telephone amongst a range of other features. As a working machine the Vario is very good at what it does. With a sliding keyboard it is possible to type relatively quickly and accurately and also has a number of touch screen features with excellent graphics. The touch screen also incorporates a keyboard or it can be scribbled on with the stylus which has a number of ways of recognising the graphics and words written onto the screen. As a phone it is practical, albeit... Read review

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Advantages: it's a phone with a keyboard
Disadvantages: can be tricky to customise features

...only use the bluetooth feature as and when you need to as this can drain it relatively quickly with sustained use. The camera.. Well to put it bluntly "PANTS!" The image is very dark and the resolution is not as good as my old nokia 3650 which in itself was not great - though when you upload the images to the pc they improve immeasurably - i'm not enough of a tech geek to understand why this should be but i'm happy to take the chance when I do point and click. I've had no problems whatsoever with the touchscreen, when I was trying to set it up at first it didn't seem to register the taps - until instead of tapping i'd touch the screen and hold, then once it was set up all it takes is a gentle tap - this can be annoying when using the virtual keyboard though - if you hit the spacebar wrong it hides the keyboard - but that's ok, there... Read review

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Advantages: Great gear!
Disadvantages: Heavy and large

...As soon as i like the MDA I,II,III i decided to try them MDA IV or MDA Pro for one week. On the first look i was amazed by functions. This MDA is not looking like an ordinary PDA - it is closer to the small laptop. Display is great and i was able to read web pages very comfortable because of high resolution. 2 cameras had no use for me while i take photos by photocamera and i dont use skype for camera that is inside. The keyboard is excellent - very comfortable and fast to write a message and seemed durable. The backlight is automated - when you are on the spot with worse visibility the keyboard backlight turns off and the keyboard is very well backlighted. After first amazing day i saw that this is not a mobile phone. When the phone rings it has no second display so you dont see who is calling. If you want to talk you have to open... Read review

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Advantages: intuitive, stylish, fun, great music player, variety of features, internet function
Disadvantages: fingerprints! no camera, no built in speakers, only available in black currently

... 8GB iPod Touch As my boyfriend's birthday approached, I was panicking as to what to get him as men are a nightmare to shop for and I really wanted to get something exciting. I noticed that he kept borrowing my ipod nano and initially planned to get him one of his own but on the Apple website I saw the ipod touch and worked out that if I got him that then I could steal it and use it! From the Apple website, the 8GB iPod Touch cost me £199 with free postage and packing and a free optional engraving. I thought this was a reasonable price it was nice and simple to order it online. I chose the free engraving option and this enabled me to have a two line engraving on the back (top centre) of the ipod. Obviously, it is a very good idea to check your spelling at this point as the ipod cannot be returned due your mistakes when... Read review

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Advantages: Good qaulity screen, Confortable and Easy to use
Disadvantages: Low memory, Pointless aplications, Could-be-better touch screen

...Apple are always one of the first companies to fully market brand new technologies which they either develop or partner companies, such as Intel, create. The Apple Ipod touch is no exception to this. The feature which makes this mp3 player stick out the most is the use of a full touch screen. This means that the unit can be controlled by 2 buttons and the main screen without any problem. The touch screen also gives the MP3 player a PDA (personal digital assistant) feel to the device. This allows for a full qwerty keyboard to be displayed on the small device. Although this feature sounds impressive, it can be very hard to use. Most people believe that the touch screen on the Ipod touch is the same that appears on the later released Iphone. However, I would say that the Iphone has a more reactive screen which senses the touch of fingers... Read review

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