Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Sprint PPC 6700 Converged Smart Wireless Device

Sprint describes their new PPC 6700 as a "smart device." Indeed, it is. The 6700 is part of a new breed of handheld mobile devices that converge the functions of cell phone, digital camera, PDA, messaging device, and WiFi enabled pocket computer in one compact package.

You might call this trend revolutionary, in the same sense that the Palm PDA and BlackBerry upset the status-quo to establish new standards. The new elements that converge in this device are broadband communications via both WiFi and cellular EV-DO, the Windows Mobile operating system, PDA style touch screens, QWERTY Keyboard popular on messaging devices, and high resolution digital cameras and Bluetooth derived from the latest cell phone technology.

First of all, The PPC 6700 is indeed a Sprint PCS cellular phone with a speakerphone, voice memo, downloadable ringtones, and Bluetooth headset support. The Bluetooth feature comes in handy when it is unsafe or just inconvenient to be holding a phone up to your ear. Clip on a Bluetooth headset and put the 6700 in your pocket or bag.

The digital camera has a 1.3 Megapixel resolution for decent quality snapshots to view on the large screen of the PPC 6700, send to friends and colleagues via multimedia messaging, or to print and save. LED flash and digital zoom are included. You can also put the camera into camcorder mode and record up to 30 second video clips, with multiple video formats supported.

The PDA and messaging functions are supported by a 240 x 320 pixel color main display that offers both portrait and landscape modes. The touch screen includes Graphiti writing software. The full QWERTY keyboard slides out from the side of the device, where it is protected when not in use. Rotate your 6700 by 90 degrees and you have a pocket computer with large keyboard and rectangular display.

The platform is a 416 MHz Intel processor running Windows Mobile 5.0. Memory totals 128 MB of flash plus exapandable capacity using the miniSD card slot. Built-in software includes MS Pocket Outlook email with support for MS Excel, Word and PowerPoint documents. You also have MS Pocket Explorer for mobile Web browsing and Microsoft Messenger for instant messaging.

The Sprint PPC 6700 can access either of two high speed data networks. In WiFi hotspots or within the range of home or office wireless access points, you have 802.11 b/g WiFi communications. This is pretty much the built-in standard of all new notebook computers. But the 6700 can also connect to Sprints EV-DO cellular broadband network, which gives you high speed data on the go. Speeds are typically 700 Kbps with bursts up to 2 Mbps. Beyond the EV-DO network that is available in most larger population areas, the cellular data network falls back to the 1xRTT standard that gives you download speeds up to 130 Kbps.

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