HTC’s S710 smartphone is a deceptively conventional looking Windows Mobile device. It appears to be just a standard candybar phone, but it features a slide-out qwerty keyboard that makes it easier to input text. It is also one of the first shipping devices with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.0 software.

Available from April through resellers such as Expansys, the S710 will also be offered by Orange as the SPV E650. It is about the same size as a standard phone and weighs 120g, meaning it can easily be carried in a pocket. The device is a quad-band GSM phone with GPRS/Edge, but no 3G data capability. However, it does have 802.11b/g Wi-Fi capability, and Bluetooth for linking with wireless headsets and hands-free car kits.

In tests, we found the phone has a few rough edges. When sliding out the qwerty keyboard, there was often a delay before the screen changed from portrait to landscape orientation, for example. In setup screens, the navigation key often changed the status of check boxes when we attempted to move to the next one, which hampered us a great deal when configuring the device for both email and Wi-Fi.

That aside, we found this device a great format for workers that require a carry-anywhere phone that can also do email. It worked well as a standard phone for voice calls, and the slide-out keyboard made it much easier to tap out SMS text messages or compose emails. As with other Windows Mobile devices, the handset can get push email when used with a corporate Exchange server, but also supports POP3 and Imap mail accounts.

The S710’s 2.4in display is large for a phone of this size, and we found its 240x320 image clear and easy to read. It also proved good for web browsing in either portrait or landscape mode. The GPRS connection makes browsing slow at times, but users can turn on Wi-Fi when in range of a hotspot. The phone automatically uses Wi-Fi for data traffic once a connection is established.

While the S710 is the first Windows Mobile 6 device we have seen, there was little other than the spruced-up graphics to give this away. The smartphone version (now called Window’s Mobile 6 Standard) is supposed to feature Microsoft’s Office Mobile applications, but the S710 has ClearVue’s suite of viewers for Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents instead.

Like HTC’s S620, the new device has a mini USB port used for PC synchronisation, as a power connector and to plug in the supplied audio headset. The use of this connector means buyers are tied to HTC’s headset, or must purchase a Bluetooth wireless headset.

The S710 appears to have a reasonable battery life for a Windows Mobile device. We used it extensively during testing, and its 1050mAh removable battery typically lasted a full day between charges, even with occasional use of Wi-Fi.

HTC has equipped the device with a slot for MicroSD Flash storage cards, and the handset also has a 2 megapixel digital camera.