I had not slept since Thursday; I had too many butterflies in my stomach to get much sleep on Friday. I did just get some prime snooze time after a very long day, but still I will need to acclimatise myself to the current time zone of minus 6 hours GMT.

Being a heavy technology user, I have brought along some of my trusty gadgets that has served me well on past trips. So what exactly do I pack in my suitcase?

Sony DSC-R1 - Fantastic CCD with 120mm lens, used in extreme weather before and still works a charm

Sony Vaio SX5XN - Had this for 4 years now, compact, plenty of power to do most tasks even games. Love the simple design, smaller HDD than I would like though

Sony DCR PC55E - Ultra compact Mini DV camcorder and pocketable. Video quality not out of this world, but perfect for posting on the web. Amazing microphone for distant sounds

HTC Touch HD - What can I say, I still love this phone. Quad band covers almost everywhere you want to go in the world

Nintendo DS Lite - I have this exact colour version, Ice Blue from the Nintendo Store in NYC

Western Digital My Passport 320GB - Actually this is 300GB after formatting, yes manufacturers STILL use 1,000 bytes to a kilobyte mathematics. Bargain at £60

Cowon D2 - Things that this beats competitors hands down (including the iPod): 1. Sound quality is phenomenal 2. Battery life, it just keeps on going at 32 hours. Plus support for multiple file formats including my beloved FLAC

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It is based on Windows mobile, what no Android I hear you cry! Yes I know I was a bit disappointed about that too, but that Touch Flo 3D interface they plonked on top is quite marvellous. The bottom bar scrolls along with a glide of your finger, you also get tactile feedback from button presses via small vibrations. I will be totally honest with you, I have had no problems with Windows Mobile on my HTC Shift and I doubt I will on this. It just, works. Yes previous iterations of the OS were extremely buggy with random crashes, but I believe the combination of HTC’s technical wizardry and Microsoft’s platform goes merrily hand in hand. It is very intuitive from the off, if I need to read the manual to get a mobile to work how I want within the first 15 minutes then something is wrong.

The screen is gorgeous, with a resolution of 480 x 800 which I believe is higher than the iPhone. Tucked unobstrusively at the bottom is a stylus, I didn’t even notice it initially. Normally a stylus would be housed at the top on most PDA like devices, but it seems more convenient at the bottom. It is also held in magnetically to prevent it from dropping accidentally. You also get an 8GB micro SD card, spare stylus and suede slip case. Nice. Also another fancy thing is the built in accelerometer, load up the game called Teeter for some marble tilting action. You may get funny looks on the train though.

Software wise it is fully loaded with apps. Google maps, portable version of YouTube and the built in GPS is quite handy. Being Windows Mobile, you can very easily add your own applications and games as there are literally hundreds of thousands out there. I have a Gameboy emulator I need to install and play around with. The Weather one is quite nice, with animated snowflakes, current temperature and time. You can add multiple places if you travel regularly.

Additional technical specifications is as you would expect from HTC:
4 inch 65K TFT screen 480 x 800 pixel resolution
Wifi
GSM/Edge/3G/HSDPA connectivity
SDHC card slot, max 32GB
Bluetooth
512mb ROM
288mb DDR RAM
FM Radio with RDS
5MP camera (but no flash, bummer)
1350 mAh battery
etc…

Suffice it to say, you will NOT be needing any other device to be fully connected while on the move. The verdict is out on battery life as I use it more (only had this for 2 days). The HSDPA connectivity is reliable, I can’t say the same thing for the iPhone from my experience.

Where can I get one?

Yes, this is where it can get slightly tricky. For our US counterparts I don’t think any carrier has picked this up which is surprising, as a lot of people would love this as an iPhone alternative. They really need to sort themselves out over there. For the UK and our European cousins, the unit is available from Orange and TMobile. You CAN get this from O2, but not directly. I got mine from www.mobiles.co.uk I had to wait over 2 weeks as it has been popular. With a 24 month contract the phone is free with 600 mins and 500 texts for £30 a month. They are currently doing a promotion where you get the first 9 months at half price line rental. I think O2′s tactic is to not undermine the iPhone, hence their reluctance to stock this in their official line up.

First impressions verdict: I love it, the interface is silky smooth, there’s not as many proprietory locks as other devices and it seems reliable. Did I mention that lovely screen?!

Pics to follow very shortly!

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