Spice Edge S-1000

The phone only supports quad-band GSM and GPRS support with no sign of EDGE connectivity, let alone 3G/UMTS. I've voiced my concern quite articulately in the first paragraph, so I won't talk much about it here.

The mini-USB slot on the phone is useful not only to recharge the phone without a mains charger, but also to use the phone as a standard mass storage device into which you can drag and drop your files without requiring ActiveSync. Of course, ActiveSync is also available to perform PIM synchronisation with the PC. The only problem here is that USB is limited to slow 1.1.

The phone comes with Bluetooth 2.0, along with A2DP support. There's also WiFi 802.11b/g support. Some online sources have stated that this phone also supports 802.11n, which would actually live up to the whole 'cutting-edge' theory of the phone, but we seriously doubt that we're holding in our hands a mobile phone that supports the latest, unreleased, draft specification of WiFi 802.11n. Seriously.

The phone also supports Infrared.

Multimedia
Very little to talk about here, being a standard Windows Mobile phone with Windows Media Player provided. MP3s and WMAs work. MP3s can be set as ringtones. 3GP videos can be played back, but they don't playback in full screen mode, not unless you use some third party apps. The speaker on the rear is fairly loud, but not as loud as some of the other Nokia phones out there. Considering this is a business phone, the ability to play videos in full screen mode with adequate volume of the speaker is important. What if the projector doesn't work and you need to show a video presentation?

As mentioned before, the phone has a standard 2.5mm stereo jack. With a 2.5mm to 3.5mm converter/adapter, you can plug in any headphones you want. Since A2DP support is present, you can also use wireless stereo headphones with it.

There is no FM radio tuner in the phone.