In today's business environment, every minute counts. It used to be that time spent out of the office--even time spent away for business reasons--was, in some ways, time wasted. No more. Smartphones--the marriage of cell phones and electronic PDAs--have made staying in touch with the office easier than it ever has been. Most cell phone and PDA manufacturers are now making smartphones, so it takes a very special one to stand out. The Samsung i730 does just that. The Samsung i730 is crammed with features. This phone runs the Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Pocket PC Phone 2nd Edition operating system. The advantage to this OS is that it interfaces with PCs running Windows seamlessly. It's especially adept and synchronizing Microsoft Outlook between the phone and the PC. One particular innovation the Samsung i730 features is the front display. A stylus may be used with the large screen. Or, the screen can slide down, revealing a full QWERTY keyboard and five-way selection button. This device is powerful, too. It contains a 520 MHz Intel CPU with 64 MB of RAM and 128 MB of flash storage. To put this in context, this is more powerful than most computers from a decade ago. The i730 is designed specifically for business users. Not that home or casual users can't (or won't) use it, but businesspeople will get the most out of this phone. It's two to three times larger than most cell phones, but the i730 isn't supposed to be a regular cell phone. It's designed to be the lifeline to the office while away. At that, it succeeds admirably.
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