Nokia 9300i Communicator reviewed

Maybe we're a bit spoiled with our Treos and our HTCs, but when All About Symbian concludes that despite lacking a number of popular features Nokia's upcoming 9300i clamshell smartphone is a good device for business users on the go, it automatically gets knocked off of our short list. The 9300i is exactly the same as the 9300 in every way save for the addition of WiFi, which turns out to be a mixed blessing because the pokey 150MHz processor can't render pages as fast as the 802.11 can pull them down. Like its sibling, the 9300i lacks 3G data capabilities, a camera (which makes sense for the targeted audience), and a usable joystick/rocker, although it gets high marks for the rest of the keyboard ergonomics, the sharp LCD (albeit with an odd 640 x 200 resolution), and implementation of Symbian Series 80. This device also does all of the usual multimedia/office functions you'd expect from a smartphone, and sounds like it does them fairly well, but in the end it seems like it will probably be resigned to serve as a safe choice for Finnish corporate IT buyers.