About a week ago I sent the Shift review unit back, so I figured it’s time to tie up my thoughts on this controversial device.

Prior to receiving the Shift, I read several reviews of the device, and they all seemed to sing the same tune: it was too slow and too expensive. In my experience only one of these was the case.

In the current market, with competition from low-cost ultra-portables like the ASUS Eee and the HP Mini Note 2133, the Shift is too expensive. Sure it has features that the other two don’t have, like a convertible Tablet PC form-factor, built-in 3G (in UMTS and CMDA varieties) and the clever SnapVue PDA mode, but when you take into account a top-spec HP 2133 is almost half the price, the value does come into question.

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When I asked Nokia if I could review their 8800 Arte handset, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Some dumb phone that just looked a bit pretty, form and no function, a celebrity only famous for being rich?

I’m certainly not the target of a phone like this. I like my mobile devices to be able to do everything. Surf the web, get emails, keep my calendar, mind my address book, and keep everything in sync with everything else. These are things that typically flumix a Series 40 phone.

I was all set to be disappointed with the 8800 Sapphire Arte, and at first I was, until I realised what this phone is all about…

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In the spirit of reviewing, two nights ago I gave the HTC Shift restore feature a try. There are no discs included with the Shift, just a recovery partition containing an image of Vista Business, the original applications and the drivers.

Quite a good idea actually, sure it chews up a bit of the relatively cramped 40GB HDD, but at least you’ll know that if something goes wrong (virus, damaged system file, etc) you can just hold F3 while booting, and bring it back to the default state.

In my experience however, not all was moonlight and roses. Getting the recovery going was a simple matter, and it happened quite quickly too (less than 30mins). Booting for the first time takes ages, but eventually I hit the Vista desktop, straight into a driver warning.

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I’ve been using the Shift this morning and felt some thoughts were in order.

Sorry about the poor photo, the BlackJack II camera is crap

I popped my SIM card in for some high-speed data, and it is just so damned convenient! As soon as Vista starts up I have full internet access, wherever I am. SnapVue really is a great feature, being able to instantly access calendar items and email without having to boot Vista is wonderful.

Quite a surprise was the usefulness of the tiny thumbpad on the right side of the screen. Most people don’t realise it is a fully-functional Synaptics touchpad, which includes scrolling!! Widening the scrolling area of the touchpad makes it really good for scrolling through web pages. And despite the reviews I have read, I quite like the touchpad for controlling the mouse. With a little bit of practice, it’s useful.

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