KEY POINTS:
I spent a good half hour on the expansive stand of Spanish telecoms operator Telefonica at the Mobile World Congress today.
That's because, despite the mass of congress-goers milling about, everyone seemed to have overlooked the HTC Shift which Telefonica was showing off.
After familiarising myself with the Shift, which next month goes on sale in Europe exclusive to Telefonica in Spain, Orange in the UK and TIM in Italy, I came away very impressed.
Offerings to date in the ultra-mobile PC category which has largely been built up by chipmaker Intel, have been patchy but the Shift appears to have the right mix of hardware design, software and decent connectivity options.
It is an 800 gram computer with seven inch screen, a 40GB hard drive, running Windows Vista and powered by Intel's UMPC processor the 800MHz A110 processor.
The shift part of the deal is interesting. As well as the main processor running Vista, a 400MHz Qualcomm processor is also employed to run Pocket PC functions while the main computing functions are powered down.
It's like a mini-computer and PDA built into one which is great because the device is always on and ready to go at the touch of a button - no waiting for it to boot up.
The so-called SnapVue mode lets you check emails, send text messages and look up contacts while in PDA mode, which extends the battery life of the device up to three days.
The Shift runs Origami Experience 2.0, a Microsoft-designed interface which gives you access to a range of applications in a nice touch-screen format.
It's a slick looking set-up though I wonder how Vista will perform on the Shift once you start loading the processor and 1GB of memory with several applications.
Europeans on flat-rate HSPA mobile data plans will love the Shift's built-in HSPA connection - there's also Wi-fi, a GPS chip and a fingerprint reader which is a clever security feature given that the Shift is likely to accompany you everywhere.
The Shift has a full keyboard with a base that positions the screen at an angle so it sits diagonally to the keyboard, perfect for viewing while typing. I had a play with Office applications like Word and found the Shift to be easy to work on.
I hope HTC, which sells the Touch and Titan through Telecom, finds an outlet in New Zealand for the Shift, which will sell in Europe for 1200 euros. Expensive it is, but with the features packed into it, it's a nice little mobile computing package, one of the best I've seen yet.
Put it this way, I'd take the Shift over a MacBook Air any day.
