MSN Direct Wins Best of Comdex Award

PC Magazine has named the winners of its Best of Comdex awards. A new wireless service, a new iPAQ, and the latest Treo took top honors in the Mobile Devices category.

The winner in this category is MSN Direct, the wireless service used by watches with Microsoft's SPOT technology. With MSN Direct, these will be able to display headlines, weather reports, and other information by monitoring FM radio transmissions. The service will cost $10 a month or $59 a year.

Just before Comdex began, Microsoft postponed the debut of the MSN Direct service until the first quarter of next year.

One of the finalists is HP's new iPAQ h4355, the first iPAQ to have a built-in mini keyboard. It runs Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC on a 400 MHz Intel XScale processor and has 64 MB of RAM. It also offers both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Its list price is $500.

Another finalist is the palmOne Treo 600. This Palm OS smart phone is the newest in the Treo series and offers the latest version of the Palm OS and more memory in a smaller casing. It also includes a camera, keyboard, and an SD slot.

The third finalist is Bluespoon Digital, a Bluetooth headset from Nextlink.to. This device is very small and light, while still offering digital noise cancellation.

Related Links

• SPOT Watches Delayed to Next Year
• HP iPAQ h4355 Now Available
• Cingular Now Offering Treo 600