The pocket-sized gadget which is nowhere as sexy as the iPhone comes with an always-on connection to the Web, and displays fully formatted Web pages in a letterbox screen - you need to scroll vertically to see the full page.

Perhaps the best news is that the Internet connection is free: Data-wind picks up the cost of access. All most customers will pay is the $399 price of the PocketSurfer2 itself, at least for the first year.

For that they score 20 hours of browsing a month: if you want more you can opt to pay $9.99 a month for 50 hours, or unlimited access for $19.99 a month. In the second year, users pay $50 for basic access for the full year.

The PocketSurfer uses a GPRS connection, which sounds very slow, but Datawind claims its acceleration technology ensures that most Web pages load in less than seven seconds.

At yesterday's Australian launch at the Canadian Consulate in Sydney, Datawind sales veep Derek Kopke compared the PocketSurfer2 with an Apple iPhone. The iPhone, which connects via WiFi, took four minutes to load an eBay page, compared with PocketSurfer's seven seconds.