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Two new Microsoft-based smartphones, a Windows Mobile Smartphone—the SMT5600—and the a Pocket PC Phone—known by the name Magician—are making the rounds in the Internet rumor mill.

Although these devices share the same original equipment manufacturer, Taiwan-based High Tech Computers (HTC), they share something else as well: both the SMT5600 and Magician are quite small for their respective platforms.

Here's the story:

Manufacturers can build two types of mobile handsets on Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform. On one hand, you've got Windows Mobile Smartphones, such as Motorola's MPx200 (see Motorola Unveils MPx220 Smartphone) and the SMT5600, which are built to be mobile phones first and PDAs second, and then there are Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phones, including Hewlett-Packard's iPAQ h6315 (see Wait Over for iPAQ Smartphone) and Magician, designed to be PDAs first and cell phones second. Pocket PC Phones are invariably larger than Windows Mobile Smartphones.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently approved the Audiovox SMT5600 (see top image) for release in the United States. All wireless devices must gain FCC approval before shipping to the American market.

This smartphone, which is already available in Europe from mobile operator Orange as the SPV C500, is—at 4.25 x 1.8 x 0.6 inches—the world's smallest smartphone. It weighs a measly 3.5 ounces.

Other features of the smartphone include a 200 MHz Texas Instruments OMAP processor, 32 MB of RAM, 64 MB of ROM, BlueTooth, a minSD slot and a 2.2-inch display that supports a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels.

As for Magician, most of the information about this Pocket PC Phone comes from Italian website PocketPC italia.com. Compared to the high-profile iPAQ h6315 Pocket PC Phone, for example, Magician is extremely small. The h6315 measures 4.7 x 3.0 x 0.7 inches and weighs 6.7 ounces, while Magician is purported to measure only 4.1 x 2.3 x 0.6 inches and weigh a mere 5.0 ounces. These specifications put Magician in line with some Windows Mobile Smartphones and not your average Pocket PC Phone.


Magician

Other features of Magician may include a 416MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor, 64MB of memory, 48 MB of ROM, with 7.6 MB of the ROM available as extra storage, BlueTooth and a VGA camera. The device's screen is slated to measure only 2.9-inches and support the Pocket PC standard 240 x 320 pixel resolution. It also has an SDIO-enabled Secure Digital slot for memory and peripheral expansion.

The Audiovox SMT5600 is a tri-band GSM/GPRS smartphone, while Magician is supposed to be a quad-band GSM/GPRS device. As a result, both smartphones should work in the United States as well as much of the rest of the world.