A case in point is GPS navigation: I tested ALK's CoPilot Live 6 for Smartphones, which comes with a Bluetooth GPS receiver that sits on your dashboard. You slip a MiniSD card into the phone (annoyingly, under the battery) and after a quick software install, the program runs. It communicates wirelessly with the GPS receiver, and quickly discovers its location. The turn-by-turn navigation experience was fairly positive, although on occasion it did point me in the wrong direction, as if a U-turn was part of the itinerary. It's no Garmin, but it passes the basic tests. The software costs $300 with the Bluetooth receiver. That may sound expensive along with a $300 phone, but it's still cheaper than most full-featured plug-and-play GPS navigators.
SDA is a useful platform for software such as CoPilot. Though the system occasionally strains when it's given too much to do, it manages to pull through without freezing up. The battery life is pretty good, too: During a two-hour round trip with the screen backlight on and the speaker barking navigational instructions, the SDA didn't even lose a bar of battery power.
Although the Windows Mobile software comes with Pocket MSN for handling Hotmail and MSN Messenger, T-Mobile had the sense to include additional instant-messaging software for AOL, ICQ and Yahoo! It also has a non-Microsoft e-mail system for most POP3 accounts, as well as AOL. I like, from a cold start, spelling someone's name, picking their e-mail address out of my Outlook contacts, and then deciding, in a click, whether I want to e-mail that person from my Hotmail or AOL accounts. I can't even do that on a PC!
The SDA does, however, have some software idiosyncrasies. When I plug it into my laptop, for example, it crashes the computer's Wi-Fi connection. The only solution is a full reboot. Even when it can't connect to the Internet, because — for instance — it's in Flight Mode (no radio, for use on airplanes), it tries anyway, and then gives you error messages, rather than alerting you to switch modes. Incidentally, during my test I put the phone in Flight Mode, then couldn't figure out how to get it back to a normal calling state.
My favorite head-scratcher occurs when I open a Hotmail message. I read down until I see a link to download the rest of the message. I click it, and the link generates this alert: "Message will download next time you connect and receive e-mail." Excuse me? I want the rest of the message now! It's remedied fairly quickly by a "Send/Receive," but it's a good example of the digital red tape you might encounter.
Though the SDA's Microsoft operating system may at times be frustrating, the Microsoft connection may pay off. If your e-mail is managed via a Microsoft Exchange server, your SDA could become one of the eagerly anticipated BlackBerry killers. According to early reports, Microsoft's Direct Push e-mail system will be available as a free download on Windows Mobile devices, first from Cingular and then later from other carriers. For details, check out this report by PC Mag's Sascha Segan.