The Motorola MPx200 is an extremely compact smartphone, at 1.88 x 3.5 x 1.06 and 4 ounces, it's easily the smallest and lightest of the trio. The Windows Mobile 2002-based MPx200 is available from AT&T Wireless and carries a $409 list price, but rebates and multi-year commitments can get the cost down to around $250.

Navigating the MPx200's drop-down menus is accomplished via a centrally located D-pad and action button, supplemented by two context-sensitive buttons and a "Home" button that returns you to the phone's main screen. Helpfully, icons for recently-accessed applications take up residence at the top of the screen making it easy to return to them quickly. These features make the MPx200 easy to manipulate, particularly in one-handed fashion.

32 MB of RAM is included with the MPx200, and an SD slot can accommodate up to a 1GB SD card for additional storage. Battery life is rated at 240-270 minutes of talk time and 95-112 hours on standby. A small backlit display on the phone's lid displays essentials like time, date, battery and signal strength and Caller ID info.

The MPx200's petite size necessarily limits the size of the unit's display, but the MxP200 had by far the brightest, sharpest, and most vibrant display of the three smartphones. It makes excellent use of the space available, and you can customize it with multiple color schemes and wallpaper choices.

Anyone familiar with Windows will quickly feel at home with the MPx200's compliment of productivity applications, which closely mirror those found in Microsoft Outlook-Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, and of course, e-mail. The MPx200's uses a unified Inbox that can store SMS and voice mail messages along with e-mail.

You can synchronize your phone data with the desktop applications via the included USB cable (or via Infrared). The Inbox can also act as a Microsoft Exchange client and synchronize with the server over the air if supported by your organization.

When composing or replying to e-mails, the Mpx200's lack of a QWERTY keyboard or a stylus/virtual keyboard combination necessitates text entry through the numeric keypad, which is somewhat inconvenient and time consuming even with the assistance of predictive text input. As an alternative, the MPx200 lets you record voice messages in .wav format that can be sent as mail attachments. You can also record voice memos for your own benefit.

Beyond the PIM functions, other communications applications on the MPx200 include mobile versions of Microsoft Windows PC applications including Internet Explorer, Media Player, and an MSN Messenger client.

The Motorola MPx200 packs a lot of functionality into an extremely small and light package with excellent display quality. Its use of the Windows Mobile 2002 OS gives it an interface and applications that will be familiar to any PC user, but those who need to enter a lot of text will likely not enjoy doing so via the numeric keypad.

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