In the UK, mobile phone network 3 has the exclusive rights to the Motorola A1000 PDA phone. This is a handset that, according to Motorola, will "match your ambitions and technology to fuel your dreams" with "Web access, person to person video, Mega pixel camera, MP3 and video streaming."

While you may think that's a load of old marketing tosh, a quick glance at the enormous screen on this phone ought to make you think again. It measures 39.9mm wide by 61.4mm tall, which is 73.2mm or 2.9 inches on the diagonal, and that is simply huge for a mobile phone.

The device supports Quad band 900/1800/1900/WCDMA 2100 and has both Bluetooth and GPRS. The claimed talk time of 225 minutes with 200 hours of stand-by is fair enough, and the 24MB of internal memory can be expanded thanks to the Mini SD slot.

No doubt the reason that 3 signed a deal with Motorola for the A1000 is that the screen is ideal for showcasing the services that it is desperate to pump at its customers. If you want to watch movie clips of breaking news stories or absolutely must see a replay when your team scores a goal, then this is the phone for you, provided you're happy to pay 25p for less than one minute of content, that is.

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Once you grasp how big the screen is you won't be surprised to learn that the A1000 measures 113 x 58 x 20mm and weighs in at a hefty 162g, which is very similar to the Sony Ericsson P900. However the 3 Motorola A1000 feels very big and heavy when you hold it in your hand. This is probably due in part to the styling, which is neat yet uninspired, and seems to hope that a combination of dark grey and silver with a bit of a curved bevel on the bottom edge will help you to ignore the sheer size of this phone.

Believe us when we tell you that it won't, not for one moment, and this is where 3's marketing goes a little amiss as far as we are concerned. The Motorola A1000 is big and heavy if you think of it as a mobile phone, but of course we're meant to regard it as a hand-held video device, and in that context it makes a certain amount of sense.

There's a VGA camera on the front of the phone and a 1.2-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom on the back so you can take photos and make video calls. The control buttons and navigation pad are tucked away below the screen, but you'll generally use the icons on the touch screen to navigate the phone's functions.

The A1000 uses Symbian rather than Windows Mobile and it definitely benefits from this operating system, as most commands take just one click, rather than the four or five that Windows often demands.

If you need to do some typing then you can call up a virtual QWERTY keyboard, and when you make a phone call you'll find that the virtual keypad fills the screen, so you'll have no trouble pressing the correct numbers.

The Motorola A1000 is a fast, well specified PDA phone and the enormous screen is very impressive. The screen also dictates whether this phone will be any good to you as it makes the phone big and heavy, so if you want to make video calls and movie clips then you should head for a 3 shop, and rapidly. On the other hand, if you only make voice calls and send SMS messages then it's not worth the bother.