POGO hits the Australian market with lightning wireless transfer speed

Hitting Australian shores in the coming months, the Pogo will deliver what consumers want most from a hand-held device - full web access at a speed equal to that of a desktop with a dial-up connection. The Pogo employs impressive patented compression technology to deliver mobile web access at a rate in excess of 56kb/s over the GSM network. This compares with standard data transfer rates of 9.6 kb/s and even more importantly, the Pogo can browse any Internet sites - not just the WAP enabled ones - in 256 colours with full graphics including Flash.

Already in use in the UK, the Pogo is described as 'an intermediary pathway to 3G' by Peter Gable, CEO of Frontier Australia, the Pogo distributor.

Although functional web access is the Pogo's 'killer-app', it also contains a mobile phone, email, MP3 player, gaming and PDA capabilities in its robust, wallet-sized 13.5 X 10cm body.

Operation of the Pogo is via a stylus using icons and an on-screen 'keyboard' - although there is no plug-in keyboard option, a number of shortcuts are included to make interfacing with the device faster and more intuitive - for example SMS 'short-speak' functions are included and there is no need to type in the letters of web extensions such as .com and .org because one-touch options are provided in the browser.

It sounds like good marketing spin, but the Pogo really does match the speed of a standard dial up access and the MP3 player and phone functions - which operate with or without headphones - are not compromised by the 'all-in-one' concept. Pogo has 128-bit encryption capabilities allowing full internet banking services to be accessed - this means you can use the Pogo to pay for goods by making a funds transfer online rather copping a 3% bank fee.

Frontier Australia are completing tests of the Pogo and expects the Pogo to be available in June at a cost of around AUS$1300. And when 3G does finally arrive - the Pogo has been designed to enable an easy upgrade path.