Sept/Oct 2005

Seen here in our picture is Panasonic's new CF-P2 handheld/smartphone, which effectively bridges the gap between a PDA and a 'conventional' smartphone. It's one of the more striking 'fusion' products of its generation, offering a phone-like form factor and keyboard, but a large 240 by 320 pixel transflective QVGA colour screen - and perhaps most significantly, running the Pocket PC operating system in Windows Mobile 2003 Phone Edition guise.

Its features include up to 256MB of flash memory, multi-card expansion slot support for Wi-Fi and GPRS.

It has quickly made a mark since its launch earlier this year, and now Telepartner Systems has adopted it as an option for use with its ServiceNet Web-based mobile service solution. The company describes the P2 as 'the first truly rugged, lightweight and palm-sized device available at PDA level pricing, and É the best device for ServiceNet.'

In the past Telepartner has supported various phone-based devices including Nokia Communicators and O2 XDAs. But it says the selection of device has tended to be based on price-performance rather than robustness. Devices like the CF-P2 score in all these areas while being only slightly more expensive, the company says.

 

'Most of the hybrid smartphones force some compromises when used as field devices, especially in tough working environments,' says marketing director Graham Erskine. 'The P2 is both small and rugged and comes with a complete feature set; that makes it a near perfect device for ServiceNet users.'