Disclaimer: Since this particular phone appears elsewhere and this is a webphone section, I will use this review to describe only the web based functions.

The Nextel i1000 plus has 4 basic operating modes. These are Phone, Private, Group-Silent, and Net. Selecting net mode produces a quick plug for phone.com and T9 based text input then proceeds to the main Net mode menu. Like most web-enabled phones, this one uses a series of cascaded vertical menus to allow browsing. Those of you expecting a miniature browser full of annoying banner ads and nifty graphics will be quickly disappointed. This is a text only web (for now anyway) but can be quite powerful once one becomes acquainted with it.

The main net menu is as follows:
1) Sites
2) Shopping
3) MSN mobile
4) Nextel Services
5) Bookmarks
6) Enter Site
7) Search

Sites
Sites is subdivided into Portals, News, Finance, Office, Travel, Weather, and Leisure. Each subgroup contains a somewhat random assortment of options loosely associated with that group heading. For example, selecting News gives you a choice between CNET news.com, MSNBC, and smartRay. Some of the choices are redundant but many are useful. Under Office, an eCompare shipping cost calculator calculates the cost of shipping a package from one zip code to another by FedEx, UPS, and USPS provided you know its weight. A package tracker is also available for these same companies if you know the shipping number. A trimmed down Zagat restaurant review is available for 38 cities including New York, Houston, and Chicago. In addition to the review, the restaurant can be called automatically by pressing a single button. Other links include Ticketmaster, Expedia, Lifeminders, and Etrade.

Shopping
This category provides links to Amazon, DealTime, mySimon, Brandfinder, B&N, FTD.com, ShopNow, eCompare!, Edmunds.com, and the Go2Shopping network. Shopping by embedded scroll down menus can be particularly tedious and the one time I tried to order a CD from Amazon, my username and password would not work. My guess is unless you know exactly what you are looking for and trust the security of your credit card being beamed around you won't use these too often. Personally I'm waiting for that IBM commercial where you can order sodas from vending machines with your cell phone to become a reality in the US.

MSN Mobile
If you haven't guessed it by now, Nextel seems to be in bed with Microsoft when it comes to the wireless web. Under this category you can send and read your Hotmail, rifle through MSN Money, check News and Entertainment info etc..Logging on to the regular web version of MSN allows you to create a personal account and customize info that carries over to your cell phone. For example you could enter your stock portfolio into MSN Money and then follow it on your phone with MSN Mobile. Somewhat Nifty.

Nextel Services
An address book and account manager. Here you can manage your contact information and phone number lists. Personally I don't use it because the phone itself stores 100 phone numbers without using the web functions. If you're particularly anal or need mailing addresses at your fingertips than these can be input online and managed/referenced from your phone. If you carry around a palm pilot you probably won't use this part either.

Bookmarks
This is where you store commonly visited or personal sites. Increasing numbers of web sites have adopted WAP versions of their full scale web pages so you'd be surprised what you can find out there.

Enter Site
If you haven't entered a site in your bookmarks you can manually type it in here. Be warned though, T9 won't help you much here and sites with numbers or symbols in their names are particularly painful to enter. Thankfully the www and .com are assume so to get to www.Yahoo.com one would simply have to enter 'Yahoo'.

Search
Google, Go2Online, and CitySearch. I haven't compared a search here with a full web search but a recent search for 'arse' turned up well over 20 choices. They are however displayed in groups of 5 so you may give up on the more obscure searches.


I first signed up for unlimited web services about 4 months ago for $19.95/month. Since then Nextel has reorganized its offerings and increased the number of options and partnerships available. That being said many of the options don't work. For instance I am after 4 months still unable to login to Etrade. While I have no intentions of trading on my cell phone (yet), it is quite frustrating to receive login error after login error. And frankly, Nextel service plans aren't cheap so dumping an extra $20 a month for malfunction is added salt in an open wound. There are cheaper plans that provide a limited number of page views and then charge per page after that. I would not suggest these as phone-browsing will quickly eat up your allotted pages and there is no counter to warn you.

Overall, I would have to say unless you have the money to waste, you might want to wait another few months while Nextel irons out the rest of the kinks. They have definitely improved over the past 4 months but still have quite a ways to go.



Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 20/month, $150 for the phone