Labs

Orange's phone looks the most businesslike of the group. Now that colour screens are the norm, the SPV's is unlikely to attract much attention. In its favour, it has loads of fun features. The built-in camera's image quality is well above average. The 352x288 top video capture resolution is double that of the other phones, although this does reduce frame rates to around five frames per second. A USB cradle plus Bluetooth and infra-red support makes connecting to a PC and other peripherals easy, and ActiveSync compatibility ensures straightforward and reliable synchronisation with Outlook. Battery life is a real let-down though: three days' standby is an optimistic figure, and daily charging is likely to be necessary. At least the phone can be charged via its USB connection as well as from its charger.

Windows Mobile 2003's Home Screen looks attractive, but more importantly, it's packed with useful information and shortcuts to commonly used functions. Menu navigation is fast and accurate. But what makes using it really quick is that each menu option has a number beside it - before long you'll be shooting around the menus far faster

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than with the Sony's stylus or the Nokias' navigator pads.

Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphone has further welcome improvements over the previous version. You can set it up to receive e-mails from multiple accounts, although this does mean ActiveSync and GPRS-based accounts are handled separately, even if they're from the same address. The phone can check e-mail accounts automatically via GPRS and emit an audible alert when new e-mails have arrived - a huge bonus for travelling business users. This setting is fairly well buried in the e-mail configuration wizard, which seems a little daft, as you'll only want it when you're away from your desk.

The other built-in applications performed impeccably in our tests and leave little to be desired. MSN Messenger works just like its desktop counterpart, albeit with a text only limitation, and is a great low-cost alternative for text message addicts. Web browsing works reasonably well with the navigation pad, and having 'Shrink To Fit' as an option rather than on all the time gives access to a greater range of Web sites. The Voice Notes function is simple but effective, and the Calendar and Contacts are easy to navigate and update with the help of predictive text. MP3 playback only becomes unstable when running other processor-intensive tasks simultaneously, and the side-mounted MMC/SD slot is much preferable to the Nokias' internally mounted slots or the Sony's use of pricier Memory Stick Duo cards.

If you can work around the limited battery life and don't mind using the Orange network, there's nothing not to love about this superb little device. The fact that it's available for free with contracts starting from just £15 a month is the icing on the cake.