Samsung SPH-i330 Palm OS Phone:

  The Samsung i330 is one of the standouts emerging from a breed of smartphones that are cropping up to fill the market niche for a single pocket-sized device for dialing and computing. Samsung’s second foray into the handheld market, the i330 runs on the Palm OS platform and replaces the i300 with a slimmer profile, a boost in power, and some additional options.

  Sized halfway between a PDA and phone (measuring 4.9 by 2.4 by .7 inches), the i330 is light and slim enough to hold during a marathon phone conversation and has curved, rubberized sides for a comfortable grip. Additionally, the 256-color,160-by-240 graphic LCD screen is large enough to perform computing tasks easily with the included stylus.

  Running on the Palm OS 3.5.3, the icon-based layout is familiar, and shows 12 icons (out of 18) at a time. Two central buttons on the lower end of the phone offer manual scrolling up or down through icons and four other buttons take you directly to your memos, to-do list, address book, and calendar. Additional preset icons at the bottom of the screen take you to the main menu, phone book, calculator, and find button. We found the speakerphone function in particular was quite handy, for it let us access PDA functions while continuing our conversation.

  Calls made from our home and our car were clear, but the ringer on the i330 was a little bit quiet on its loudest setting and was a bit muffled when the phone rang from a handbag. The voice-activated dialing feature, however, recognized our voice, even with a loud TV blaring in the background, and put our call through immediately. 

  The phone keypad on the i330 is on the touch screen, and we found that error-free dialing was much more likely with the stylus than with our fingers. However, the i330 does have hot keys so you can dial directly from the phone book without the stylus if you choose. Additional icons at the bottom of the phone screen access a list of the last 10 outgoing calls, turn on the mute button, activate speed dial, and control the key guard.

  The i330 comes with a fast 66 mHz Dragonball processor designed to get the most out of CDMA 1XRTT wireless networks, allowing an average speed of 144 kbps for data transfer. The large screen made it a pleasure to download Web content – everything from news sites to flight information.

  The i330 comes with a cradle that dually works for charging the smartphone and synchronizing its data with Microsoft Outlook on a desktop computer. Loaded with 16 MB of RAM, the phone has enough memory to hold data for the average user. Other available features for the i330 include a digital camera and a keyboard for enhancing the phone’s capabilities.

  Overall, we recommend this phone to business users who are looking for a PDA/phone unit in a smaller size than usual but that still allows for loads of usability. --Cristina Vaamonde

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