T-Mobile Ameo review

The T-Mobile Ameo walks a tricky tightrope between smart phone and ultra-mobile PC. Yet it somehow manages a neat balancing act, impressing with its vast screen and blistering HSPDA connection, despite its finger-torturing keyboard.

The Ameo is made by HTC and is available only from T-Mobile, from free on its Flext 75 contract (£70 per month) to £430 on pay as you go. Unlimited Web access via T-Mobile's Web 'n' Walk package costs from £7.50 a month on top of your voice plan.

Design
In spite of its admirably tough metal casing, the minimalist Ameo is no looker. It comes in two separate parts -- a streamlined main body, home to a huge 124mm (4.9-inch) touchscreen, and a slim, magnetic Qwerty keyboard. You can place this over the display to protect it in transit, with a transparent window that acts as a secondary time, date, reception and battery indicator. Or tug it off and slide it under the Ameo's short edge to support the display and type on the keyboard.

The Ameo comes in two parts: the touchscreen and the thin magnetic keyboard

If that sounds unstable, it's because it is. Jab at the screen with the stylus or a finger and the Ameo topples backwards like it's starting a world-breaking domino run. But slip the Ameo into its surprisingly classy Filofax-style case and the brown leather wrap-around supports the rear of the screen, letting you prod it in safety.

The keyboard itself is a pain to use, with flat, unresponsive keys that have far too little travel for touch-typing. It's just slightly better than a BlackBerry for thumb typing. One further word of caution -- the keyboard magnets are very strong, hoovering up (and potentially corrupting) stray metallic goodies such as USB keys.

The Ameo has a spread of dedicated controls, including one-touch buttons for the 3-megapixel camera, Web browsing, Start menu, volume and a handy miniature joystick. Of course, you'll spend most of your time navigating via the sharp and speedy VGA display. While it doesn't have as many colours as Nokia's N-series handsets, its size and resolution mean that Web pages burst with detail and most icons are large enough to dispense with the stylus and use just your fingers.

Features
T-Mobile is unlucky to have started shipping the Ameo with Windows Mobile 5 just as version 6 is arriving. But don't worry too much, as you've got a suite of tried-and-tested PDA features, letting you work on Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents, read Acrobat files and -- especially -- master surfing and messaging.

The included brown leather case supports the two sections and lends the Ameo a retro Filofax feel

There are two browsers on board: Internet Explorer Mobile and Opera. T-Mobile has wisely chosen the latter, offering tabbed windows as the default browser for its all-you-can-surf Web 'n' Walk service. The Ameo is enabled for 3G and nearly-next-gen HSDPA surfing, promising speeds of up to 1.8Mbps.

The Ameo also has VueFlo, a motion sensor that allows you to steer your way around Web pages by simply tilting the device up, down, left or right. This is a little sticky and unresponsive to use, and would be much more impressive if it also worked in Office documents and emails.

All email and text messages are handled through a single, efficient Outlook-alike interface. Mail junkies can set up push emails, which are branded as T-Mobile Instant Email (£17 per month) but actually use good old BlackBerry technology.