MIKE BUTCHER INBOXTHESE DAYS if you're not mobile in business you don't exist. The Blackberry remains king of mobile business but the latest addition to the mobile computing pack is the HTC Shift, a costly "ultramobile" PC (UMPC).
At an eye-watering €1,195.95, the Shift is more than three times the price of an Asus Eee PC, the tiny, Linux-powered ultraportable which is cheap and cheerful.
However, the Eee is unlikely to be able to offer you the quad-band GSM/GPRS/Edge, 3G HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 that the Shift can. True, you'd expect something running a screen resolution of 800x480 to be a little cheaper, but it's all about portability here.
The Shift's 7in touch-sensitive display tilts back to reveal a Qwerty keyboard. It runs Windows Vista Business edition, and has 1GB of DDR 2 memory and a 30GB hard drive.
There's even a fingerprint reader for security and an SD/MMC card slot.
Why is is called a Shift? Well, it contains a second processor that provides PDA-like functions so you don't have to run Vista to check e-mails and you can make calls via a Bluetooth headset. But is this just an over-sized PDA with an outsized operating system?
The funny thing is, the Shift almost makes the iPhone's price look good. The Shift also looks underpowered compared with the new Toshiba Portégé R500 sub-notebook which comes with 128GB of solid-state storage, Intel's 1.33GHz ultra-low voltage Core 2 Duo U7700 processor and 2GB of 667MHz DDR 2 memory.
If I wanted Windows Vista on the go, and liked making all my calls via a Bluetooth headset, I'd consider the Shift. However, it doesn't feel like the Shift is the big shift business is looking for.
