In the phone category you have two basic choices- A cell phone with internet capability, and a PDA with cell phone capability.
I'd suggest if you wish to use this device primarily for talk buy the cell phone with internet capability. If you intend to do some more involved e-mail, wish to surf the web, do sling box and other media playback stuff, thenm the PDA is better suited.
Browsing is very different than a regular computer, even on a PDA / Phone because this device has a restricted screen size. The cell phone with internet, even more so but in addition, a PDA will have the QWERTY keyboard while the cell phone with internet will require the multitap or predictive (No QWERTY) to punch in text.
Special websites often use frames popups and java script. While the cell phone will really have trouble with this, a PDA phone can actually do quite a few "regular computer" functions on the web. eg. Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) for windows Mobile 5 is pretty good for most websites but it lacks all the neat stuff thet you get with IE6 on your "regular computer" such as media loads, and java scripting, flash etc. But, with a PDA you can add another browser that does it all such as Opera. I use this when I know I'm going to a web site with necessary popups, java script or need to auto load WM9, flash, Quicktime or other media files from the website, including pdf file launch. There are thousands of applications for a PDA, far less for the phone.
I can do spreadsheets in excel on my PDA, I can't edit video but I can launch my "Gotomypc" and then access my desktop on my home computer and load up the edit software and make simple edits from there but while possible it is really
hard.
