Kyocera QCP 6035 Palm OS Smartphone

May 2001, by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief

Discontinued. Note the Kyocera 7135 color Palm OS Smartphone replaced the 6035 in May 2003.

Kyocera has come up with a winner in the 6035 Palm OS Smartphone. Imagine the functionality of a Palm VIIx wedded to a tri-band digital wireless phone, and you've got the 6035.

Both Verizon and Sprint sell the 6035, along with some of the "smaller" telephone companies. It can make CDMA, PCS and analog phone connections, as well as acting as a wireless CDMA modem supporting the TCP/IP protocol. You can use this phone to access the Internet both as a modem for your laptop using the included serial sync cradle or accessory data cable by plugging it into your computer's serial port. And you can also use it as a wireless Palm PDA, a la the Palm VIIx, VisorPhone or Omnisky, to access the Internet directly as a wireless PDA.

The phone offers very impressive integration between phone and PDA sections. When the flip pad (where the number dialing pad is located) is closed, the unit behaves as a wireless phone (though at times it may tell you to open the flip to view information that is integrated into the Palm PDA functionality). All phone functions are available with the flip closed, and jog wheel on the left side of the unit allows you to access the intuitive wireless phone menus.

Open the flip, and you have a fully functional Palm OS PDA. The device has all (and I mean ALL!) the features of a Palm PDA: graffiti handwriting recognition, datebook, contacts, memo pad, to do and expense. If you've used a Palm, the Kyocera will be completely familiar to you in PDA mode. The unit is about the same length as a Palm VIIx, but noticably narrower, and a bit thicker. The size is quite tolerable, and a major improvement over its predecessor offered by Qualcomm a few years ago.

But there's more: you can use the 6035 as you would a Palm VIIx or Omnisky device to access the Internet using the phone as your wireless modem. Connection is fairly quick (within 5 seconds using Verizon on our unit) and actual surfing speeds are faster than a Palm VIIx, thanks to the wireless phone running at 14.4 while Palm.net runs at 9.6K. You can use the included Eudora Web browser and e-mail client to surf the web and read and send e-mail (multiple e-mail accounts supported, POP3), and most all Palm.net .pqa applications such as Mapquest, eTrade, Yahoo Mail and more.

Voice quality is excellent, and connections are reliable. Thanks to the integration of the Palm functionality and hardware, you get nice features such as a built-in speaker phone (great when you're on hold), the full Palm address book for your contacts/ phone number database, scheduled on and off times for the cellphone, and the ability to track minutes used for prime time, mobile-to-mobile and night + weekend minutes per billing period using 3rd party software. Unlike the Sprint I-300 Palm OS smartphone, this unit has a dedicated hardware dialpad for dialing and a partial flip cover that will please the cellphone-centric users among us. We heartily recommend this device if you want to reduce the number of devices you carry and would enjoy connecting to the Internet and your e-mail in a much more usable fashion than offered by standard wireless phones and WAP browsers.

Introduced April 2001. It sold for $499 activated or $549 without a service contract. You may find it for less, depending on the cellular company and your local market. As of Feb. 2002, the price has been reduced to $399 with activation and $499 without activation for Verizon, and as low as $250 with activation for Sprint users. Now that's a bargain!

Pro: Our boss carrries one of these and she can't live without it. No need to carry both a PDA and a cell phone. Palm integration is great, battery life is great, it has voice dialing, and digital coverage (required for Internet access on the phone) is stronger than any other solution in the US. Con: Big for a phone, OK size for a PDA. The physically smaller screen may be hard on some eyes. Unlike the Palm i705, you don't have unlimited Internet access-- your surfing will eat your monthly minutes.

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