In Part One of this article, we took a look at the latest Palm OS smartphone offerings from Handspring, Kyocera, Samsung and Palm. In this part, PDAStreet covers what's happening with Microsoft and its partners, Symbian (Nokia & Sony Ericcson) Research In Motion and T-Mobile with its consumer orientated Sidekick.

Nokia Communicator

On the Symbian front, one of the first smartphones, the GSM Nokia Communicator ($599 with service), received a significant upgrade this year with the 9290. The Nokia Communicator has a very different design than the other devices mentioned in this article. It is more like a miniature laptop. In fact, like a laptop, it, unfortunately, does not have a touchscreen. When the phone is closed it looks like a large, 6.2 x 2.2 x 1-nch 8.6 ounce standard mobile phone. The keypad and a small LCD are on the top of the device. When the 9290 is opened, the large 640x200 pixel and a miniature full keyboard appear.

Nokia Communicator 9290

It has a 32-bit ARM9 RISC CPU, 56MB of RAM, and includes a 16MB MultiMediaCard. Users need to buy MP3 software separately. Cingular and T-Mobile support the Nokia Communicator. The device specs out at 600 minutes of talk time and up to 216 hours of standby time.

Sony Ericsson P800

A lighter more compact Symbian OS smartphone is slated to appear early in 2003 with service support from Cingular, the Sony Ericsson P800, a flip phone with a 4,096 color and 208 x 320 pixel touchscreen display that weighs 5.6 ounces. It includes 12MB of RAM, a built-in camera and GSM/GPRS support.

Sony Ericsson P800