Om Malik : » Sprint’s PPC6700 Stands Out

Om Malik : » Sprint’s PPC6700 Stands Out:

You may have heard the argument: When talk turns to converged consumer electronics devices, many tech industry observers point to the clock radio as one of the few success stories. Everything else, no matter the maker, tends to sacrifice usability in the name of feature-lust. So what to make of Sprint’s new HTC-designed, UTStarcom-produced, PPC6700? In addition to posing as a dual-band CDMA phone (800/1900MHz), Sprint’s new business-focused smartphone also packs both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios, operates on Sprint’s nascent EV-DO network, includes a (surprisingly good) 1.3 mega-pixel camera, the Windows Mobile 5.0 OS, an integrated QWERTY keyboard, and a removable storage slot. As it turns out, the 6700 may be the best-designed and implemented PDA phone to date. I spent the last four days testing the 6700 encountering no major problems; in fact, the 6700 may be one of the first devices to offer a viable alternative to towing around a laptop on short trips. Not only was I able to connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi at home and the office (its internal antenna was able to pick up a Starbuck’s signal 29 floors below and a block away), at times I was able to get download speeds in excess of 400 Kbps using Sprint’s EV-DO network here in San Francisco. (Here’s a list of cities in which Sprint curren