Not only does the P4000's Windows Mobile operating system, like the BlackBerry, enable push e-mail, it also features a full QWERTY keyboard - which slides out from under the 2.8-inch touch-sensitive screen - and a scroll wheel that you push in, BlackBerry-style, to make selections.

But to suggest that the P4000 is just a BlackBerry wannabe is unfair. It's actually one of the best, most complete PDA phones we've seen yet, and the design is very cool. The catch: it's available so far only on the Canadian Telus CDMA/EV-DO network. It is supposed to be headed to the U.S. as the PPC-6800 from Sprint. A very similar smartphone, the GSM/UMTS 8525 from AT&T (Cingular) is available in the U.S., however.

Telus sells the P4000 for $200 with a three-year contract, $550 with no contract. (All amounts are in Canadian dollars.) Talk and e-mail plans start at $45 a month (100 minutes, 4MB). E-mail and Web plans start at $25 a month for 4MB.

The P4000 has just about all the do-dads you could want, with the possible exception of GPS. Wi-Fi (11b/g) is built in. So is Bluetooth. There's a microSD card slot to add more memory (2GB for as little as $30 at current prices). The product includes a 1.3-megapixel video-capable camera—not a very good one when judged against single-purpose digital cameras, but better than in some camera phones. Its screen is big for a Windows Mobile phone, with a high-resolution (320x240 pixels, 65,000 colors).

HTC's P4000 is based on the Qualcomm MSM7500 chipset, which has a dual-CPU design that integrates an ARM11 applications processor and an ARM9 modem processor. In our testing, it appeared fast enough for most multimedia applications.

Software
One Windows Media movie rendered at 320x240 pixels did appear a little jerky and showed digital artifacts in fast motion sequences. But in fairness that may have had more to do with the way the movie was rendered than any lack of processing power in the P4000. My 3,500-entry phonebook also caused a noticeable slow-down when launching the Contacts applet, but the applet performed fine once the contacts were all loaded into memory.

The software suite includes the Windows Mobile staples—Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, ActiveSync, the Contacts, Calendar and Tasks applets that synchronize with Outlook using ActiveSync, Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, and Word Mobile.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile messaging application, which provides basic pull e-mail, uses a new wizard that makes it very easy to set up an account—you don't need to know your POP incoming mail and SMTP server addresses. But Telus also includes its BusinessInbox service, which uses the hosted push e-mail system from Visto Corp. It will push mail from a POP3 or Exchange server account.

Hardware & Features
The P4000 is the complete package. And it's not a very big package at that; just 4.3 x 2.3 x 0.9 inches and 5.3 ounces (150 grams) with battery.

Its physical interface is fairly well thought out. The front surface is mostly taken up with the screen, but at the top, there are dedicated buttons for launching the mail and browser applications. Below the screen, there's a circular four-way navigator, nicely raised from the surface for positive contact with the edge of the thumb on the hand holding the unit.

Flanking the navigator are two soft keys just below the screen, Answer and Hang Up phone keys below the soft keys, and in the next row, a dedicated key for launching Windows Start and an OK button for confirming data entries and exiting the current application program. (Pressing the OK button in the latter case is equivalent to clicking the OK button in the top right corner of most Windows Mobile application screens.)

The P4000 also makes good use of the other surfaces. On the left edge, at the top, you'll find the jog wheel, nicely placed so right-handers can turn it with an index finger and southpaws with their thumb. It allows you to scroll vertically through menus, Web pages and other application screens. On Web pages and application screens, it acts like a tab key, moving from one link or command button to the next. Pushing the wheel in towards the device activates the highlighted link or command.

Just below the jog wheel there's another OK button and below that a dedicated button for launching the voice dialing application. (It requires you to record voice tags for each contact you want to be able to voice dial—unlike the last BlackBerry I tried, which only needed a voice tag recorded if it had repeated problems understanding the spoken name.) Near the bottom of the left edge, you'll find a slider switch for turning the Wi-Fi radio on or off.

On the right-hand edge, the power button is near the top. Just below it is a dedicated button for launching the HTC Comm Manager applet with onscreen toggle buttons for turning radios and communications applications on and off—phone, Bluetooth, messaging, Wi-Fi, auto synching and ringing. (There's also a Flight Mode button: clicking it once automatically turns all the radios off.) Near the bottom of the right edge: a dedicated button for launching the camera application.

On the back, you'll find the camera lens, a tiny camera light and a port for connecting the P4000 to a car antenna.

Keyboard
The pièce de résistance is the 41-key QWERTY keyboard, which slides out to the right. When it slides out, the P4000's screen orientation automatically switches from portrait to landscape.

The keys are bigger and more clearly marked than on most PDA keyboards, including BlackBerrys, but are not as nicely shaped or raised from the surface as they could be. While the BlackBerry layout is the model for such keyboards, this one, which is much more horizontal and less cramped, works at least as well in my opinion, mainly because the keys are bigger and better spaced.

All but three of the keys have an Alt value. The Y, U, I, H, J, K, B, N, M and period keys double as the telephone number pad. You have Alt-plus access to more useful special characters than most PDA keyboard provide - including @, ", ' &, *, =, ( and ). Overall, I'd say the P4000 keyboard compares very well with BlackBerrys, and may be preferable if you have fat finger tips.

While the device feels solidly constructed for the most part, the cover over the battery compartment on the back is made of very thin plastic and could easily break. It was also a little tricky to get it back on.

E-Mail/Phone
For an e-mail device, I still prefer the BlackBerry. It's just slicker - easier to set up, easier to use. But the P4000, coupled with Telus's Visto push mail service, comes close. As a Web browser, it suffers the same limitations as any mobile device, although the screen is bigger and higher resolution than many and the jog wheel makes scrolling through pages relatively easy.

As a phone, it suffers the limitations of any device with a QWERTY keyboard rather than a conventional telephone number pad—calling a party whose number is not in your contacts list requires means launching an application and clicking keys on an onscreen keypad or laboriously punch the tiny keys on the keyboard while holding down the Alt key. My test calls on the Telus network had good volume and clarity, even indoors and with a relatively weak connection.

Multimedia
The multimedia functions are a mixed bag. The P4000 impresses most as a music player. It comes with stereo ear buds, unlike some recent multimedia BlackBerrys we've tested, and it sounds pretty good. The earbuds, however, plug into the same USB port as the power and synch cables—meaning you can't use standard head phones. This made it impossible to do side-by-side comparison tests with other mobile devices.

As noted, the P4000 didn't always perform superbly in playing back movies, but it's still amazing that devices this small and versatile can play video as well as they can.

The camera, like most phone cameras, is not very good—mediocre fixed-focus lens, low resolution sensor and inferior auto-exposure system combine to produce not very sharp, not very well exposed pictures that you can print at sizes no larger than 4 x 3 inches. There is also a very long delay between pressing the shutter button - the center of the four-way navigator - and the exposure actually being made.

Still, as a tool for recording visual notes or recording shenanigans at a club, it's probably good enough. It does include a small flash unit. And the camera software offers more flexibility than most, including exposure compensation, manual white balance control and a self-timer.

Bottom line: The P4000 is a very small, very full-featured Windows Mobile device that can convert from stylus-based handwriting-recognition text entry to keyboard text entry and offers all the multimedia conveniences. If you're not a BlackBerry bigot, it's definitely worth a look-see.