The o2 Xphone is one of the first phones in Australia to use Microsoft's new embedded SmartPhone 2003 OS, which is a highly, highly pared down and customised version of Windows XP. Anyone familiar with the Windows interface shouldn't have much trouble operating this phone. Having said that however, it does take some getting used to when navigating the menu systems, but it doesn't actually take long to get up to speed.

This is the second Smartphone we've reviewed (O2's Xphone, March 2004, page 55) but, unlike the Xphone, the Motorola MPx200 features a clamshell design. Smallish, black and sleek, the MPx200 is a Tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 phone with GPRS which enables email, SMS, MMS and WAP capabilities.

There's one thing that's immediately noticeable and annoying about the otherwise superb Xphone II: it's incredibly slow to turn on and boot up. We clocked about 72 seconds from pressing the power button to connecting to our service, with about a minute of that taken up by just booting the phone's OS.

The myS-7 from Sagem is the company's first foray into the smartphone market with Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. It's a little larger than the Xphone II but this marginally wider neck means that keys are just that tiny bit wider, and when your main mode of input is the keypad this tiny extra can work wonders.

The i-mate Smartphone2 is one of the new breed to feature the new Smartphone 2003 OS, and is almost identical to the O2 Xphone (March 2004, page 55), except for a few cosmetic changes.

O2’s phone is the smartest of the lotwithout being a full-on smart phone.It runs Windows Mobile making itfeel more like a PDA, but accessing the keyfunctions soon becomes intuitive. It’s the onlyphone without a flash, but even this would notrescue the poor picture quality.

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