Since Trium's Mondo and Sagem's WA3050 first hybridised the Microsoft Pocket PC and GSM mobile phone nearly two years ago, technology has moved on. HP's Jornada 928 Wireless Digital Assistant is a prime example of a second-generation Pocket PC PDA phone solution.

The 928 WDA will be the last ever HP Jornada. The Jornada brand is a casualty of HP's take over of Compaq, whose Texas-developed iPAQ PDA family has enjoyed greater commercial success to date.

But the Singapore-developed Jornada family isn't going out with a whimper. The 928 WDA is a novel and advanced device. Previous PDA phones required relatively expensive and complex separate computing power for the phone and PDA sub-sections. HP has employed a cheaper and simpler single Texas Instruments custom chip boasting two ARM CPU cores; - an ARM710 microcontroller for the phone section and a 132MHz ARM925 core, mated to 64MB of memory, for the Pocket PC 2002 section.

This is notable because nearly everyone else to date has produced Pocket PC 2002 PDAs using either the 206MHz Intel SA110 StrongARM, or, more recently, the newer and faster 400MHz Intel XScale. To cut through the techno-jargon, HP decided to sacrifice out-and-out power in favour of a lower cost hardware solution that also consumes less battery power.

So does the Jornada 928 suffer from having a slower ARM925? There are noticeable pauses when opening new applications and sometimes when switching applications. The cursive handwriting recognition seems to have suffered in accuracy too. But overall, it's not a major issue.

One of the more recent Jornada models' trademarks has been the 'Star Trek' communicator-style protective flip up cover. This has been retained and can even be replaced by an optional cover that sports an illuminated mini-keyboard if you are into serious texting. You can't use the device close to your ear like a conventional phone when the cover is open. With the cover closed you can't see or access the main screen and phone application.

However, the Jornada 928 is the first Pocket PC PDA phone to feature a separate LCD display for phone-specific functions. It's visible above the flip cover even when that is closed. It's also flanked by familiar green and red phone function buttons. Luckily, the flip cover can be removed altogether quite easily. Alternatively, you can use the Jornada 928 in speakerphone mode. A voice activated dialling feature alleviates the problem of the flip cover obscuring the screen.

GPRS connection, for always-on Web and e-mail access at communications speeds comparable to a dial-up modem, is possible with the 928; a great improvement over 9600Kbps GSM data speed. Our review unit was prone to crashing when surfing some Web sites, but when it worked, the speed at which pages and e-mail arrived was good.

The 928's colour TFT screen copes extremely well in bright sunlight, but indoors the colours and contrast are a rather washed out. Two slimline rechargeable lithium polymer batteries are included. One is replaceable and one isn't. For some, this will be a major plus point over the current Compaq iPAQs that only have fixed batteries. Battery life is good for a colour screen Pocket PC device, even with the phone on. Most users should find it will last a working day or two in casual use between recharges. Only a Type I/II Compact Flash slot is provided - there wasn't enough room for HP to fit a SD/MMC slot as well.

On the surface, the HP Jornada 928 WDA is simply Jornada PDA with a phone grafted on. Underneath, the technology is much more integrated than that. As a phone, it's more of a compromise than the Sagem WA3050, for example, but the Jornada is a much better PDA.