Kyocera 7135 (Verizon Wireless)

Features of Kyocera 7135 (Verizon Wireless)

The Kyocera runs Palm OS 4.1 and is powered by a 33MHz DragonBall VZ processor and 16MB of RAM. This is sufficient for holding calendar and contact info, as well as a few applications, but you can add more storage with the aforementioned SD/MMC slot.

Caller ID: Screen your calls using the Kyocera's second display.	Wild card: The unit trumps other smart phones by including an SD/MMC slot.

As a phone, the 7135 has the standard features and a few extras. The Kyocera adds a speakerphone and voice-activated dialing to staples such as speed dial and one-tap dialing from the address book. You may send faxes, and you can even schedule a date and time to send an SMS--great for calling in sick to work. Also, the 7135 is GPS/e911-ready and will support that functionality when it becomes available.

We do have a few quibbles, however. In phone mode, the touch screen is deactivated, and you can navigate via only the rockerlike OK buttons. This issue is minor--and you can still access the 7135's Palm functions while on the phone by hitting the phone icon--but tap-happy PDA users will find this extra step frustrating. Also, a slight delay between when a phone key is pressed and when it appears on the screen makes for slow dialing.

Webophiles are given three ways to access the Internet: The EIS Web lets you customize your various settings, such as whether to load images or use JavaScript. EudoraWeb is an HTML-only text browser for speedier page loading. And Openwave is a WAP browser found on most cell phones.

For ISP and POP3 e-mail, there's Eudora for the Palm OS. Eudora will display text or HTML and can identify attachments. This app also includes some extended features such as the ability to sort and filter messages.

You may listen to MP3s with the 7135, but you must furnish your own headphones.

On the software side, the 7135's package is enhanced by extra image-viewing, file-browsing, and music applications. You can collect, view, and present slide shows of images in MGI's PhotoSuite Mobile software. FileManager organizes all of the files and inserted media on the device, allowing you to rearrange, copy, or delete data. And Kyocera's MP3 player lets you download files from your computer, order the tunes into playlists, and listen to them through headphones. Unfortunately, no headphones ship with the device; the special minijack phones will cost you between $20 and $40.