Motorola A1000 is 3, up to a point

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Price: Free - £120 on contract from 3
Web: HERE
Availability: now

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THE A1000's SCREEN is very definitely its best feature. It's enough to make anyone consider buying this Symbian based 3G smartphone from Motorola.

Currently the A1000 is only available from 3 in the UK, so we couldn't load up a Web browser and see how good it is at surfing the Net because 3 operates a 'walled garden'.

Still, downloading various videoclips was no problem. The ace feature is that you can tap the (touch) screen once, and the image starts to play in landscape rather than portrait mode. It offers 208 x 320 resolution with 65k colours.

Motorola appears to have fronted the A1000 with its own UI and after a while the shortcomings showed through. There's no physical keypad or keyboard so you have to rely on screen tapping or a soft keyboard/keypad. It's easy to get confused when making a call and find that there's no obvious way to hit a hash (#) key or number.

The INQ had blagged the A1000 for just a few days so there was no chance to try data synchronisation software either. There wasn't even a TransFlash memory card supplied with the handset. So The INQ has to assume the card fits into the slot on the side of the casing. Although there's a second free slot under the battery!

The main purpose of trying out the A1000 was for video calls which worked very easily. The only snag is that since the 1.2 Megapixel camera is fixed, it's not too easy to get a decent picture of yourself while talking.

The Bluetooth facility worked really well. It was even possible to send a .vcf (vCard) style business card from a Nokia to the A1000 and it arrived safely with all details including a thumbnail picture. It linked readily to all the Motorola Bluetooth headsets we had to hand too.

The A1000 has A-GPS built in which means it should work indoors. Sadly, it only functioned properly outside. The good news, however, is that you could load up some Symbian based navigation software and save yourself a fortune on a car navigation system.

Considering the A1000 has such a huge battery you'd expect it to last considerably longer than rival handsets but it only managed a few extra hours. At least this handset wasn't too heavy or bulky - for a PDA style smartphone. Its illuminated keyboard even makes it look rather stylish.

The UI needs some additional thought but there's nothing lacking from this handset in terms of useful facilities. It even doubles as a portable music centre for playing back downloaded MP3s to your mates. µ