My cell phone is a word processor

Hard to believe perhaps, but this article is being written entirely on my Windows Smartphone. Not, I hasten to add, on the little abc keyboard or even using T9 word recognition. No, this was typed on my Dell Bluetooth keyboard using a lovely little freeware text editor called Orneta Notepad. And the good news is that it all works rather well—a very practical solution for the mobile writer.



That shouldn't come as such a surprise. My Orange SPV C500 may be small, but it packs in a 200 MHz processor and a bright 176x200 screen. And the operating system is not all that different from the version of Windows that runs on my PDA. Problem is Microsoft don't even ship a simple text editor with Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphones, which is a damned shame, because I have to tell you, this is extremely good fun! Also, if I could afford the telephony costs, I'd be able to upload this article to my blog directly from my phone.

On top of that, the phone makes a pretty neat mp3 player (although decent 2.5 mm plug headphones are pretty hard to come by), a cute video player, aided by the excellent sound from the on-board speaker, and a tremendous portable navigation system when coupled with my Bluetooth GPS and TomTom Mobile 5 software. Although I prefer the larger screen of the PDA for in-car SatNav, on the phone I get 7.5 hours battery life or more, compared to the PDA's 3 and a bit. That was enough for a full dayÂ’s walking in London last weekend.

As well as that it does all the usual stuff like sync with my Outlook calendar and tasks and make phone calls. On that last point alone it is the best-featured, best sounding...simply the best mobile I have ever used. Throw in all the other features, tried or simply imagined, and you have a little miracle.