A big advantage to WM5 is that it includes the Mobile Office suite, consisting of Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, and Word Mobile, all of which work pretty much just like on the desktop. The great thing about this is that it's part of the OS and not a third-party add-on taking up your free memory, like on the Palm.

Another advantage to Windows Mobile is multi-tasking; true multi-tasking, just like on the desktop. It's great to be able to run one application, open another to reference a fact, hop on the Internet to look up a source, and listen to music while you do so, all without closing anything down. I've been waiting for this kind of feature on the Palm for years, but it's not likely to happen now.

For input, the XV6700 offers six options. Six! Can you believe that? The slide-out keyboard in Figure C is one option of course, and probably the best for entering large amounts of text.

FIGURE C


The XV6700 features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Roll over picture for a larger image.

I've never used a "thumb-type" keyboard before, but I took to the XV6700's pretty quickly. There's also Block Recognizer and Letter Recognizer, which are similar to Palm's Graffiti, an on-screen keyboard, and an on-screen phone pad keyboard. But my favorite by far is Transcriber.

With Transcriber you can write in your own handwriting, print or cursive, and it will be converted to text. I have a rather unique style of writing that is a mixture of print and my own version of cursive, but Transcriber recognizes it nonetheless.

ActiveSync
Along with Windows Mobile is ActiveSync, Microsoft's synchronization software. The last time I tried to set up ActiveSync it left me angry, drenched in sweat, and brewing a major migraine. That too has changed. I found ActiveSync 4.0 as easy to set up as Palm Desktop. Simply install the software, plug in the XV6700, and that's it. ActiveSync instantly recognized my XV6700 and set up the sync all on its own, just like Palm Desktop and HotSync. And it was this simple on both a Windows XP and a Windows 2000 machine.

I did encounter a bit of a glitch later when synching to the laptop after synching with the desktop, but updating ActiveSync to version 4.1 (a free update from Microsoft) solved the problem.

The XV6700
Our Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz has likened the XV6700 to an Altoids tin, and it is considerably smaller than the Palm devices I'm used to, as you can see in Figure D.

FIGURE D


The XV6700 is just slightly larger than the screen on the Palm LifeDrive. Roll over picture for a larger image.

I was initially concerned that I might find it too small, but that just wasn't the case. Phone-wise, the XV6700 is larger than my old Moto, and PDA-wise it fits in the hand quite well and can easily be navigated with one hand using the hardware buttons and mini joystick.

I've heard people on XV6700 message boards complain about the various hardware buttons accidentally activating the device and wearing the battery down. I haven't really experienced that myself because there's a very simple fix: deactivate the buttons. In the Button preferences there is an option to deactivate all hardware buttons except the Power button when the device is turned off.