The Siemens SX66, now available from US carrier Cingular, is a high-end smartphone that seems to take the Swiss Army knife approach: pack in as many tools and features as possible into a small package. Most SX66 users will probably notice the most unusual tool right away - a small keyboard hidden in the bottom of the phone which slides out to type quick text or email messages. The slide-out QWERTY keyboard is Simens’s solution to the problem that smartphone makers face in trying to add a keyboard to a phone but keeping it out of the way when it’s not needed. It remains to be seen whether the slide-out approach is comfortable enough to be a good solution for anything more than short messages. The SX66 supports nearly every communications protocol available today, including GPRS, WiFi, Bluetooth, infrared, USB, and, of course, quad-band GSM. It’s also a Pocket PC, with a full set of organizer and calendar functions based around a 400 Mhz XScale processor. The processing power and built-in WiFi will probably make this phone especially attractive to customers who use software-based voice over IP (VoIP) services, or who connect to a corporate VPN. There are several versions of this phone available from different carriers, all of which go by different names and may have slightly different features. Other versions include the MDA III and the PDA2K. All include the unique slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and some may include a VGA camera or a different memory configuration.

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