Sprint SPH-i500

• Reviewed by: splipp

  Strengths: easy to use,compact, excellent controls, with all Palm OS functions. Much better than all previous Palm phones including SPH i300 and SPH i330.

  Weaknesses: Included instruction manual is very limited and you must go on the web to read manual for most functions; which makes the manual more time consuming and difficult to use. No speaker phone function.

  Overall: Talk and battery time are very good, but so far no plastic swivel holster is available. Having the grafitti function makes it easier to use than the Treo. This is the best and most functional cell phone I have owned, and I have owned 2 other Palm phones.

• Reviewed by: Carguy

  Strengths: The most compact PDA phone available. Business Connect software was super easy to install and lets you grab your email off your home pc while on the road. Seems to be able to access most websites.

  Weaknesses: The price for size: no expansion cards, uses old Palm 4.0 OS, only 16MB of memory and 66Mhz processor. Battery life TBD but looks thin so far, however an extra battery is included.

  Overall: So far this looks like a keeper.It's smaller than my old cell phone, has all my phone numbers, my calendar, browses the web, and grabs my email - all in one tiny device. It won't work well at all for mp3's, movies, etc. - but I never used that stuff much on my old Pocket PC anyway. The Sprint PCS deal seems pretty good. Bought a standard 300 minute nationwide plan for $35/month, then added a Professional Vision plan for $15/month that has unlimited internet and text at all times - very handy. I have found the interface extremely intuitive. After several hours of playing with it, I've figured everything out - pretty simple and easy to use. It's a pleasure to go back to Palm after the B.S. of navigating through endless Pocket PC windows. Phone features are very adequate. 30 voice dials only, but you can add speed dials - and of course your phone book is humongous and editable on your desktop software(Outlook, Lotus Notes, Palm Desktop, etc.). A speakerphone feature would be nice. Other phone I was interested in was the Kyocera 7135. Looks bigger than this one, but has SD slot, speakerphone, mp3 player, mpeg player.