T-Mobile MDA Compact III(aka HTC Artemis/O2 XDA Orbit) Review:: Things to consider Pros and Cons

The Compact III isn't your average Pocket PC phone. If you buy one people may still "think" it's a normal PDA but wait - it's far more than that. First up there's the control mechanism. When I first heard that it came with a trackball I thought back to an old arcade game in the local pub - it was called the "Crystal Maze" and involved a huge amount of trackball spinning. It would be fair to say that I didn't like the idea of a trackball much. Secondly was the scroll-wheel that surrounds the trackball. Surely that wouldn't work ? Would it?

There's something else the MDA Compact III has - GPS. It's built in. No seperate box, no extra bluetooth thingy to charge up - it's inside. Think about it. In space there's millions of pounds worth of satellites floating around, beaming location information right back down to this tiny box of tricks.

What else do we have ? Well, we'll get to that in a minute. Let's look at something it doesn't have - most noteably there's no 3G and no WiFi. Bummer, perhaps I'm asking too much ? Is it just me that wants a device with GPS, WiFi, 3G, a QWERTY keyboard, hi-res camera and a numeric keyboard? Perhaps.....................................................

Read the full comprehensive review after the jump»