We've traversed the acronym laden landscape of VoIP for you, and present you with the PC Authority guide to VoIP: what it is, what kinds of services you can find, what savings you can expect to make and how it is that you can go about setting up VoIP for yourself at home.

Part 1 of our VoIP product and services roundup includes: MyNetFone, Broadbandphone, Skype, Firefly, BBP Global and Chat-Cord.

You can stick them in your pocket or you can hold them in your hand. Six smartphones and phone PDAs reviewed

Type: VoIP service with IP phoneWeb: www.broadbandphone.com.auPrice: $199 plus monthly charges

The 650 really picks up where the 600 left off, and while it doesn't look too different to the eye, many of the changes are under the hood or subtle manipulations of the 600's design. It runs the new Palm OS 5.4 and has a much faster 312MHz Intel PXA270 processor, but the most immediate difference is the screen: it's now double the resolution at 320 x 320.

The new Sony Ericsson P910i is the only true phone/PDA hybrid on review in this roundup so aesthetically it marries some of the largeness of a PDA with the slimness of a phone to end up with a unit that's just right: it's not too big and not too small.

Wider than a normal phone and encroaching on PDA girth turf, the BlackBerry 7100v is both a capable phone and a capable PDA.

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 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.

The N-Gage is as chunky as a phone, but when you use it with both hands to play games the N-Gage shines. The 3D processor is good, so you can get some reasonable depth-of-field gaming on the device.

Type: Phone adapterSupplier: OzVoIP (02) 9016 3844Price: $45

The key differentiator with the PDA2k over other PDAs is the whopping 128MB of RAM in-built for media and files. On top of this there's a separate 64MB ROM for the OS and an SD/MMC slot for further expansion.

The new Nokia Communicator  unfortunately evokes early '90s mobile phones: it has a long body, small display and is not something you could slip into a pocket. Closed, the 9500 is monstrous, but when you open its sideways clamshell design the 9500 comes into its own.

Type: HandsetSupplier: OzVoIP (02) 9016 3844Price: $41

Part 2 of our VoIP products and services roundup includes: MailVoice, LetsChat, Netgear TA612V, Netcomm V40 and Octtel gateway.

Type: VoIP service with ATA Web: www.myfone.com.auPrice: $149 plus monthly charges

There's no denying the appeal of broadband internet access and yet for a smart country Australia has been falling way behind our international counterparts.