Datawind PocketSurfer2 R

Here's the pitch: fast, free unlimited domestic Internet access, email, instant messaging and GPS in a slim, sub £200 wallet-sized device with full Qwerty keyboard and the lowest roaming rates in the world. It sounds rather good, doesn't it? Looking closer it sounds even better: sub seven second page loads over GPRS meaning no need for a 3G signal, integrated Vodafone sim card and just £29.99 for a whopping 10 full hours use when in Europe or the US. Look even closer however and not everything stands up.

First the good. On a purely superficial level the PocketSurfer2R looks very nice. At 152x75x15mm and 174g it isn't as portable as a traditional smartphone but it feels good in the hand, is durable, requires no contract or credit check and features a large 123x47mm, 640x240 pixel screen. Charging also sensibly takes place over the ubiquitous miniUSB interface and you'll get a decent four hours of web surfing from a single charge.

Despite all this though, the PocketSurfer2R has a number of fundamental flaws which could prove deal breakers for many. Perhaps most concerning is the screen itself which uses age old passive matrix technology, something I haven't seen in a many a year and for good reason. Employed clearly to keep the costs down on a device admirably trying to bring the mobile web to all, colour reproduction is nevertheless extremely washed out and grainy and it can become quite tiring to use over long periods.

On top of this, the keyboard - while sturdy and taking heavy design cues from Motorola's famed RAZR line - smacks of style over substance with oddly shaped keys and indefensibly slanted numbers which makes text entry far less intuitive than it should be. Even the touchpad (a special addition to the 'R' version) feels rushed and its fixed 1:1 mapping means the onscreen cursor takes three to four swipes just to get half way across the screen. In fact, being brutally honest, the majority of these flaws should have been eradicated during internal testing.

Despite all this we haven't yet hit upon the most contentious aspect of the PocketSurfer2R yet: the web content itself. You see while Datawind markets the 2R as the fastest web page loading mobile device in truth you aren't getting web pages at all. You see the trick of the 2R is to act as a thin client quickly sending URLs to Datawind servers which process and return them as images. Yes, you're just looking at picture of each web page, not the web page itself and one which loads in blocks horizontally across your screen showing only the part of the page you are on and continually downloading the rest of the image as you scroll up and down.

That said, an equally valid question can be posed: in practice does any of this actually matter? And for the most part, it doesn't. For while inherent shortcomings like no Flash support may limit the scope of what can be done (just like a certain fruit branded mobile phone we can think of) in reality it does little to hinder general web browsing. Likewise, though there are major flaws in the hardware design of the PocketSurfer2R itself there can be no denying the product does what it sets out to achieve: bring fast, free web access to the masses without any need for a long term contract and at a TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) no rival smartphone or mobile intenet device can match.

Could the PocketSurfer2R be better? Undoubtedly. Is it most likely a bridging device until current flagship smartphone technology gets cheaper? I'm sure Datawind would concede this itself and yet in a credit crunch, where every penny suddenly counts the 2R is a unique product with an effective content delivery system and one which may just find a niche audience.