In their native Taiwan, Asus has a mobile phone to suit every month of the year and more, but here in Australia they rarely release them. One of the few to reach us is the P735, a 3G-based PDA device. It's the flagship of Asus's PDA range and boasts some very useful features.

Upside:
A lot of PDA's look alike--and this one resembles a Palm LifeDrive in a lot of ways with its brushed metal casing and large 2.8-inch screen. Connectivity is excellent with tri-band GSM, GPRS, UMTS (3G) and even wireless LAN. Competitors like Nokia have incorporated 802.11 connectivity into their phones for a while, and it's great to see that the Asus will let you surf the web and make Skype calls from home without incurring data charges.

There is 256MB of storage onboard, and expansion is via miniSD. The phone supports MP3 playback as well as MP3 and WMA ringtones which expands your level of customization that little bit further. One of the best features of this phone is its ability to scan business cards via its 2-megapixel camera and store them as contacts. No more fumbling through the detritus in your overnight bag for that important card!

Also pretty cool is the P735's ability to control PowerPoint presentations onscreen. There's no mention in the literature on how this is done, but presumably via the Bluetooth connection.

Downside:
The P735 is touted as a multimedia phone, despite its obvious business outlook, and so its ability to playback music files is possibly a moot point. The lack of a QWERTY keyboard may also be an issue for some users used to the convenience of a BlackBerry or Dopod--especially as the phone features push email.

Outlook:
There's always room for another player in the PDA market, especially one with such a strong heritage in the technology and communications market. Based on its feature set, the P735 appears to have the chops to help it succeed, if not to the same level as the aforementioned BlackBerry.