Feature

Editor’s Choice Award in 2006

On an average working day we get around 400-500 emails. Strip out the exhortations to invest in no-name American minnows, the offensive implication that we actually need such huge quantities of Viagra and painkillers, and the invitations to send our bank details to Nigeria. 
 
That still leaves a lot of press releases, newsletters and forums, web page change notifications, and yes even correspondence from real people. Add in the dozen or so serious phone calls we get daily, the many dead-tree newsletters and magazines we have to read, and the kit we have to review. What do you have, apart from an incipient data overload and a sore brain? A broad view over the mobile landscape, that’s what. So we’re going to make the most of our investment in information by coming up with this new honour – the Editor’s very own very opinionated and very subjective award.

WINNER:
... and specifically, the MDA Vario II with a FlexT contract and Web’n’Walk. Thing is, it’s such a good-looking package – by which I mean it’s easy to understand, and in particular it’s easy for the punters to understand just how valuable it could be. It’s a terrific business phone, albeit with the emphasis more on ‘business’ than ‘phone’ (spreadsheets and email are a doodle, but you do look like a twat when actually making phone calls). All-you-can-eat Internet is another easy sell, since it’s basically what the buyers are used to from their fixed-line broadband (and there’s HSDPA available now, so performance will be similar too). And FlexT does exactly what it says on tin. Now, if only the folks at T-Mobile could see their way clear to slipping one into the Editor’s gift bag, the New Year would be off to the best possible start ...