Our team have painstakingly compared the top business mobile phones, and news isn’t good for the folks who think life isn’t worth living if you don’t have some fruit in your pocket.

Yes, we know. You want an iPhone. Everybody wants an iPhone. You’ve probably already spent your kids’ Christmas fund getting yours, or are in the process of choosing a suitable limb to donate in order to get one.

Now let’s get something straight. We all love the iphone. It’s the techno-style icon of the decade. iPhone looks cool, it does cool things, and you could spend a cool half-grand getting one. At long last, the upwardly mobile people who remember the ‘80s finally have a worthwhile replacement for their Filofaxes.

Putting our “Mustavan  iPhone” predjuces aside for a while, we locked ourselves away in a small, well-lit room to consider some of the other possibilities for business mobiles before jumping on the bandwagon (or applecart). There’s lots and lots to choose from. We looked at eleven business mobiles in total, ranging from the no-nonsense Nokia 2730, right up to the latest blackberry and smartphone offerings and, er, the iPhone.

Starting at the “no nonsense” end, the Nokia 6303 turned out to be a very respectable mobile phone, with compact dimensions, a good 16-million colour display, 2000 contact records, and with email and internet browsing thrown in we figured you couldn’t go wrong. To label it “entry level” would be grossly unfair. It has a number of other goodies thrown in, but the camera sparked our interest most of all. It’s 3.15 megapixel resolution is the same as the iPhone 3G and with a low price it’s superb value.

It wasn’t long before resistance weakened. We played briefly with the Blackberry phones, solid, trustworthy as ever, be we really wanted to get our hands on the smartphones. It was time to categorically prove iPhone as the best and then ask the management to issue them to us and all the staff.

Southern Communications were established in 1965 and provide complete business telecoms solutions including business mobile equipment and mobile contracts for all sizes of businesses. We offer free consultancy with unbiased advice on all aspects of business communications.

Things didn’t quite go to plan. Aren’t Smartphones all about touchscreens? Well, one of them hit us with a secret weapon: an additional pull-out QWERTY keyboard. The Motorola Milestone has a very capable 3.7-inch touchscreen AND a very smart and useable pull-out QWERTY keypad with proper buttons. This brings instant relief to our city-worker friends who are fed up with fumbling with screen-based keyboards whilst being bounced up and down on the tubes and buses.

Our wayward fruit fell to the ground soon after with a thud when we looked at costs. The HTC and Motorola smartphones were priced about the same, which was about half that of an iPhone. Price is definitely where the iPhone towers above all others. So we put the iPhone carefully back, handed the HTC and the Motorola to two of our field-based sales guys and told them to go and play.

Feedback was good for both phones, with HTC seeming to win by a nose. Although the Motorola had the strongest specification and looked best on paper, HTC had superb ergonomics and slightly better build quality, but that’s just our opinion. Try them for yourself.

What can’t be denied is that both the HTC Desire and Motorola Milestone fit modern business superbly and your choice will be down to personal preference. New model enhancements on the horizon make them even more attractive and the smart business mobile option.


Unless of course, you stoop down to pick up that Apple.