The humble mobile phone has come a long way. Its evolution has been swift, and impressive; its global domination seemingly unstoppable. In a few short years, the mobile phone has, for many of us, become an indispensable part of or daily lives. It has also become something of a fashion accessory, with many mobile phone manufacturers pitching their latest, sexy communication device at today's more fashion conscious user. And with the imminent arrival of Apple's iPhone, all of that is about to change.

Or is it? As is usually the case with Apple, the iPhone doesn't really do anything new; it takes an existing concept, and an existing feature set, then ties it up with that juicy and delicious Apple bow; something that millions of consumers don't seem to be able to resist. Microsoft's Windows Mobile devices have, for some time, been performing the same functions as Apple's newcomer, it's just that Microsoft has never really been, in a word, sexy.

The Ubiquio 501 Pocket PC Phone is one of the more affordable Windows Mobile Phone devices on the market, which may usually mean a sacrifice in functionality of build quality. I'm pleased to say - in this case - that's not how it is at all.

With Windows Mobile phones - at least, the larger, more PDA-like ones - there are essentially three different "styles" of interacting with the device. Manufacturers will either go for a screen that fills the whole device, and adopt the use of an on-screen, touch-sensitive keyboard (much like the iPhone, but early Windows Mobile devices offered the same interface); or combine a full-size screen with a sliding keyboard for the best of both worlds, resulting in a somewhat bulkier device; or, finally, they can reduce the size of the screen by roughly 50%, and offer a keyboard on the front of the device, as in the case of the 501.

A Windows Mobile phone is essentially a smaller, slower PC that you can carry around in your pocket. It runs a version of Windows, it's got Outlook on it for your email (and SMS text messages), has Internet Explorer for web browsing, and even features a pocket version of Microsoft Word. That's not the end of the phone's functionality, of course: one of the beautiful things about Windows Mobile is the customisation. Just like a regular PC, you can install applications on your phone, perform tweaks, and change the look and feel of the device. It's worth noting that Apple hasn't opted to allow this on their iPhone, unless there's something they're not telling us yet.

I use an i-mate K-Jam Windows Mobile device on a regular basis, which fits into the second category I described; that of the sliding keyboard. This gives me a full qwerty keyboard, and I'm reasonably swift when typing. I didn't manage to achieve the same speed on the 501, but that's not the say that the keyboard isn't usable. It's acceptable for someone with larger fingers, but you may want to try one out before laying down any cash. That said after a few days I was impressed with the speed of use.