The world of mobile phones has just uncovered a new and compelling industrial riddle: what have you been able to do with cars, kitchens and golf clubs for years that you should be able to do with a mobile phone? A new Birmingham-based company called Sendo thinks it has the answer: customisation. This being a civil case, we're not quite sure where the burden of proof lies [reader advice is as ever, welcome]. Were Sendo a bunch of incompetent klutzes who didn't know how to integrate the perfect phone software they received from Microsoft in a timely fashion? Or was Microsoft lying when it said it could ship a carrier-grade phone OS to Sendo in the summer of 2001?

For Mobile: lets you select a monthly Device Plan Credit Agreement (3-36 months) with a monthly Airtime Plan. Phone Plans over 12 months require a 24-month Monthly Airtime Plan. You can pay off your Device Plan early, and if you do, you can then keep your Airtime Plan on a 30-day contract or leave. If your Airtime Plan ends for any reason, you will need to keep on paying your monthly Device Plan (either in full or monthly) Pakalski, Ingo (28 November 2001). "Dualband-Handy Sendo J520 mit WAP 1.2.1" (in German). Golem.de . Retrieved 15 January 2011.The company is aiming to sell a”few million”phones in the first year and said sales of less than 500,000 would be enough to break even. And this simply seals the idea that they're building a PDA in disguise. Just like the brummies to be sneaky. Anyway, we'll be reviewing the keyboard seperately in the next few days, so bear with us. I'll just raise one point here. You can plug your charger into the keyboard so the phone charges when it's attached to the keyboard. Very nice... The Big Gotcha? Under the SDMA, in the event of a Sendo bankruptcy, Microsoft would obtain an irrevocable, royalty free license to use Sendo's Z100 intellectual property, including rights to make, use, or copy the Sendo Smartphone to create other to create other Smartphones and to, most importantly for Microsoft, sublicense those rights to third parties." First thing is that the Sendo is not seen as a Mass Storage Device. Which is a shame from my point of view because it's one of the things that makes the N-Gage such a flexible smartphone. The Sendo USB connection can only be used on a PC where the Sendo PC Connect software has been installed. On the other hand, because it's tied into the PC Software, you can sync over the Sendo USB cable, unlike the N-Gage. They were not entitled to such information under the terms of the SDMA" - the precursor to the February 2001 agreement that the two inked in the fall of 2000.

Virgin and Sendo have co-developed the phones that will be on the market in the UK in the next three months. The phones will have a distinct shape and special buttons, as well as a prominent Virgin Mobile brand. "These are small, cosmetic things but they are increasingly important," says Mr Day. The first product, announced in Italy last week, is “technologically advanced” according to Brogan: “We want to show we’re not just another wannabe.”What about Mac Users? Well, Apple's iSync is pretty good at handling other Series 60 phones, so I'd expect the same with the Sendo X. Now if only I can find someone to test it for me... Document Viewer We're going to report on the UI and the new programs in the Sendo X over the next week or so, but for the meantime, the X is almost the perfect smartphone.