Despite the sheer volume of smartphones on the market, there are really only two types; those that do entertainment well and those that do business. The classic example that springs to mind is the difference between the Nokia N95 and thr Nokia E71. The E71 is actually quite a good entertainment device with decent video playback (no idea why some think this feature does not work well), but the music playback is very soft and the landscape screen does limit the gaming opportunities. In contrast, the N95 is great at music, great at video and especially great at gaming (Java, N-Gage etc.) Sadly it is not the best business device due to it's standard phone keyboard and therein lies the rub.

Manufacturers like Nokia, HTC, Apple and many others appear to be incapable of building a smartphone which does business equally as well as entertainment and vice versa. Almost all of the high-end solutions appear to deliberately miss out one or two features which would enable them to straddle the business / entertainment barrier. The E71 misses quality music playback and wide gaming support, the Blackberry phones have a 'terrible' web browser on board, the iPhone can be cumbersome for data entry and has some major ommisons such as copy/paste and MMS, the HTC Touch Diamond is a mix of lots of features that are all quite poor and so the list continues...

A device can be built that does it all. It's such a shame that nobody seems to be inclined to make it though..

Data entry on a smartphone or PDA has historically been close to pointless for anything other than quick emails, calendar entries and short bursts of text. So many devices have been produced that should in theory enable the user to write good length works anywhere, but they tend to fail dismally at this particular task.

The TyTN II and XDA Executive are two devices which follow the slide out keyboard form to produce a comfortable typing experience, but sadly they do not. Strangely, the front mounted keyboards seem to work better for longer periods of typing and the Treo and Nokia E71 have proved by far the quickest and most comfortable in this respect. It should still be noted that neither is ideal for ‘real’ work and both of today’s thoughts have been written on the E71 while waiting in a hospital. Strangely they both felt like full length articles, but are obviously shorted than you are used to on 247.

No matter what the manufacturers do, data entry on a smartphone sized unit will always be a lot slower than on a desktop. I guess they will one day make a phone that can read my mind, but I doubt I will live long enough to see that happen:)

Weather ( infinity subscription ) has been reduced by 10% for a short period. It's not a huge discount, but it is a very good application and well worth the price- "Make your own weather station at Palm now! Current condition for the entire world (and for specific regions) updates every 15 minutes. Forecast information updates every 6 hours. Before making travel plans for a hotel or flight, it can be useful to check the weather for where you want to go. The auto update mode helps to keep the weather data timely. "Weather-guard" will improve Palm's standard KeyGuard and give the access to the current condition or 7-day forecast in an easy way."

eDrinksMixn Deluxe v4.0 has been released- "Use eDrinksMix’n to store your favorite and most often used Drink recipes. With this application you can easily carry the recipes for your favorite cocktails and beverages everywhere you go from your bar at home, to a friend’s house, to a party or reunion, and all the way to the store."

The world of mobile internet devices is set to explode in the next four years says chip maker Intel.

Research carried out for the company suggests portable net-enabled devices will grow to 1.2 billion by 2012 as the need to be connected increases.

Intel's predictions were unveiled as it launched a series of chips designed for portable web-browsing gadgets.

"The demand is there and the need is there and our technology can meet those needs," said Intel's Gadi Singer.

Alongside an explosion in mobile web-using devices, Intel estimated that 100 million households will also be watching IPTV by 2011.

"The fact that people want to be on the internet all the time means they will be looking for the ability they have today say at their desk and to have that anytime and anywhere," said Mr Singer, head of Intel's mobility group.

"That creates the demand for new devices and more sophisticated devices with the computing power and connectivity presenting a major opportunity." More at BBCi.