Wireless, Thin and Smart

By Wilson Rothman

One way Sprint is celebrating its merger with business-minded Nextel is by launching a business-minded phone. The PPC-6700 PCS Vision Smart Device sprint.com $630, or $480 after rebates) can juggle several wireless connections at the same time. If you want to check e-mail and surf the Web, you can hop on a wi-fi network or connect to Sprint's new high-speed wireless network, available in more than 75 major U.S. markets. There's also Bluetooth for printing wirelessly and connecting a wireless hands-free earpiece.

Bragging rights go to the 6700 for being the first Pocket PC phone in the country to run the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform. Most of it looks just like the older Pocket PC environment, although there are some updates, including Outlook Mobile--which makes it easy to manage a Hotmail account--and PowerPoint Mobile, for handling those presentations that used to be too big to fit in your PDA.

The 1-in.-thick smartphone has a slide-out keyboard. When it's extended, the screen automatically adjusts to "landscape" view for easy typing. The 2.8-in. screen is large enough to work on a Word document, although when looking at Web pages, it's still a tad cramped. There's also a 1.3-megapixel built-in camera-camcorder and a MiniSD card slot for transferring files, including movies and music, from your PC--a reward, perhaps, for all your hard work.