What better place to start than with my new mobile "ride"..the Nokia Communicator 9300! Been an o2 xda mini for a good 4-5 months..Christina's been pestering me for a pda mobile and she has her eyes set on my mini..so gives me a perfect excuse to give this to her as a pressie and get a new phone! :) Tell you what..after owning the mini, nothing out there really suits my criteria in terms of multimedia..the mini rocks given its screensize, weight and form factor.

So I decided to forego owning a mobile for "fun" and started looking for a mobile "workhorse"; in my role as a project manager, I needed a mobile that fulfils these functions:

- Quick text input (therefore a sizeable keyboard)
- decent form factor (not a huge brick)
- Syncs natively with Lotus Notes PIM
- Recorder
- MP3

So settled for the 9300.

It's been a pretty good workhorse I must admit..syncs flawlessly (well almost all the time) with Notes..this is a must (the o2 failed miserably here). The keyboard's great...comfortably big and good tactile feel..so screen protector needed because there's no stylus use to ...:)

A bad thing is that distinct lack of cool software for Symbian 80 platform..was really disappointed at first but looking on the bright side, I slayed my o2 mini many, many times but have yet to do that to the 9300..heheh!

Another bad (irritating!) is no vibrate! What the...how can any pda mobile be without a mobile? The Nokia response..."vibrate will cause unncessary stress to the delicate circuitry"...hmm..not acceptable!

Oh, and no camera..but then, I don't miss this at all as I'm not a picture taker.

So the fongster's verdict?

Workhorse? 7/10
Fun factor? 6/10
Software? 3/10
Satisfaction overall? 7/10