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Siemens' new SX56 is certainly the real deal

Truth be told, I'm still having some small amount of trouble getting my head wrapped around the concept of PDA cellphones.

A geek's body is powered by just two things: one, mitochondrial organelles, which process glucose into adenosine triphosphate, the energy currency of cellular function, and two, a paranoid suspicion that something new has come out in the six weeks since we last bought a PDA, a cellphone or anything else that we can set up to play the theme from "The Bob Newhart Show" when activated.

Why lock both of those together?

Here I have Siemens' new SX56 PocketPC GSM/GPRS cellphone, available at attractive rates through AT&T Wireless cell plans. Phones that run PocketPC have only recently started appearing, and they've got a vast advantage over units based on PalmOS: PocketPC hardware has a lot more oomph than typical Palm gear, and the OS reflects that.

For some, noodling around with the phone's Web browser will settle the PocketPC vs. Palm matter once and for all.

By now, I've tried a wide array of Palm Phones, and each one has to come up with its own unique solution to browsing. Palm Web browsers don't support the same standards as Explorer or Mozilla, so when you try to visit Amazon or eBay, you're whisked away to a special version of the site optimized specifically for Palm. Or, the browser operates through a proxy server, which takes the Ozzy Osbourne-like demands of complicated modern Web sites and adapts them to the Paul Anka-like capabilities of your browser.

On the other hand, PocketPCs like the Siemens phone come with Pocket Internet Explorer, which supports all the most important standards for security, layout and active Web sites. And the advantages of more powerful hardware make their way up the food chain, with better tools for getting mail, viewing content and justifying to your boss and/or spouse that you needed a new phone.

Actually, that brings up a point: the Siemens is a great PDA phone, but how good is it as a phone?

That depends on your demands. No attempt has been made to hybridize the device by adding a familiar keypad; it looks exactly like a standard PocketPC, with the addition of a stubby antenna. I prefer a larger phone myself, but others might find the lack of physical buttons off-putting.

The Bads: The SX56 uses its built-in speaker for ringtones, and it lacks the oomph necessary to be heard through a jacket pocket. I kept it set to "vibrate" just to stop missing calls. It's cool to be able to use an MP3 of Wilson Pickett's "634-5789" as my ringtone, though.

But why oh why did Siemens design the SX56 with a hardwired battery pack?

When your phone, your PDA and your MP3 player all share a single, nonreplaceable battery pack, you're constantly robbing Peter (Mulroney, the boss who wants you to keep phoning in from the job site) to pay Paul (McCartney, the cute Beatle). Talktime, incidentally, is 3.5 hours, with 150 hours of standby.

As a PocketPC PDA, the SX56 has typical specs: a 206 MHz StrongArm processor, 32 megs of RAM and a Secure Digital slot for expansion. The screen supports thousands of colors and rivals the iPaq's for readability. Otherwise, it's nothing spectacular.

The Siemens is certainly the real deal, and my favorite PocketPC phone (out of, um, the three currently available), and I see no reason not to adapt my usual advice about PocketPC versus Palm PDAs: If you're shopping for a PDA and want cellphone features, get the SX56.

But if you're shopping for a cellphone with PDA features, particularly one that works more like a traditional phone, you might be happier with Kyocera's 7135, running PalmOS.

Me? I'll probably stick with the phone I got free when I set up my account two years ago. I pick it up a few times during the day and dial one of six numbers, period. But my PDA! It's a critical power tool that requires the greatest features, capabilities and accessories. I want a PDA with wireless Ethernet; in certain areas of major cities, a WiFi PDA can provide faster, cheaper, and more reliable access to mail and the Web than a PDA phone.

I want a CompactFlash slot and a replaceable battery and an accessory keyboard, too. But then again, as countless women in countless bars have told me, I'm not exactly normal.

Andy Ihnatko is a free-lance writer specializing in computer issues.