OTHER TECH

Cellphones are rapidly morphing into multimedia powerhouses, and Sprint offers solid choices at two different price levels. - Shannon McCarthy

Sprint/Samsung PCS Vision multimedia cellphone The MM-A880 ($330, left) comes with all the basic features you'd expect, like flexible ways to handle contact info (a 500-entry phonebook and assignable rings from a library of 18 polyphonic tones), a decent 1-megapixel camera with 15-second video capture, and a Web browser. But it's the extras packed into its compact (3.375 x 1.75-inch) yet sturdy (4.75-ounce) frame that make this cell really shine. The battery is good for 4 hours, the excellent voice-recognition software lets you do everything from dial numbers to launch applications, and the Video On Demand button lets you jack into video and audio offerings from the Sprint TV service. There's no infrared port or Bluetooth, but the MM-A880 does have an often forgotten cellphone function: good sound quality when you make a call.

Sprint PCS Vision Treo 650 cellphone Palm's smart phones boast a fan base of over half a million users, and its latest object of desire, the Treo 650 (right, $600), will surely attract more converts. The screen offers four times the resolution of its predecessor, the Treo 600, so the 16-bit color and graphics really pop and dazzle (great for watching Sprint TV). The keyboard is bigger and backlit, and the stylus makes it easy to explore the touchscreen. What's inside this 6.375-ounce baby is just as impressive - a fast 312-MHz processor, an MP3 player, and 32 MB of data-saving memory. While the camera's 0.3-megapixel resolution could be higher, the 15-second video capture is smoother than on other camera phones I've tried. There's no Wi-Fi but there is Bluetooth for wireless headsets and other Bluetooth-enabled devices, and the swappable battery slot lets you keep going beyond the default 4.5 hours of talk time. The sound quality while you're talking is great - comparable to using a land line. sprint.com

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