RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900

Taking pictures using autofocus wasn't as speedy as we'd have liked, since it takes another three seconds to focus and snap, which isn't ideal if you want to capture the moment. Colours tend to look a little flat but there's a fair amount of detail in pics taken in decent light - the flash is only really effective when you're within a metre or so of your subject.

The media player handles a good range of formats, including MP3, WMA, AAC (including 'e' and '+'), MIDI and WAV for audio, plus DivX, XviD, MPEG 4, H.263 and WMV 3 for video. It comes with a pair of decidedly ordinary earphones but thankfully there's a 3.5mm socket on the side which allows you to add your own, or you can connect a wireless pair using an A2DP stereo Bluetooth connection.

The 3.2Mp camera has autofocus, but it's not fast

On-board memory is nothing to shout about, though, at 256MB, it's better than most Blackberrys. The 8900 can handle Micro SD cards of up to 16GB capacity should you need it. There's none supplied as standard, though.

The current version of the Blackberry browser is efficient without being flash. The landscape resolution of the screen is good for viewing web pages, and there's a clever automatic zoom function that becomes available when you move the trackball. It's also easy to move around pages by pushing the cursor against the edges of the screen.

The lack of 3G actually isn't quite as debilitating as it might have been, since the GPRS connection means you can get around most web pages without too much delay. But you'll really notice the difference when downloading.