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All of Europe in Your Hand

Finnish vendor Benefon has introduced a device that combines electronic maps, a GPS navigator, a pen-driven personal organiser and a dual-band GSM phone.

The tiny 129x49x23mm Benefon Esc weighs only 150 grams and is water and shock resistant. Maps (including charts) from around Europe can be downloaded to it from any PC with a web browser.

It uses a 12 channel GPS receiver and an integral high-grain flip antenna. It even tracks Benefon Esc users and will guide you to them. An emergency button can also send an SOS and pinpoints your location.

The dual band GSM 900/1800 phone's range can be extended with an optional high-grain cross-countryantenna. Standby operating time is up to 10 days. UK price and shipping have yet to be announced, but around £100 more than a conventional phone is a sensible guess.

NEC Shows Off

Third-generation mobiles may be three years away but concept designs are already with us. At Telecoms99 in Geneva, NEC showed a videophone consisting of a standard-sized handset with a plug-in 352x288 pixel display showing a crisp image at 20fps on a 64Kbit link.

PDA Phone

Motorola's P1088 smartphone, which packs organiser features, ships here in early 2000. Motorola is a Symbian shareholder, but this uses a proprietary java-enabled OS for which Motorola will be releasing a developer's kit. It supports both POP3 and SMTP email.

The 192x272 touchscreen shows 16 levels of grey and accepts text input using Lexcia handwriting recognition.

GSM is limited to 9.6Kbit/sec. The device links to a PC via a cable or infra-red and TrueSync sunchronisation software from Motorola-owned Starfish.

Phone / MP3 Player

Ericsson has just designed a prototype phone/MP3 player using a 32MB memory card capable of holding around eight tracks.

Net Phone

Samsung has announced a raft of handsets including the WAP-based SGH-810, the SCH-M100 Internet Phone and the SPH-M2100 which packs an MP3 player.

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