About a year ago, ViewSonic helped usher in the era of low-cost Pocket PCs with the introduction of its $300 V35 (http://www.SmartphoneMag.com/Mar03/v35.asp). They followed up on that with the V37, a more robust model with a faster processor, more memory, and a quite reasonable $350 price tag. Their latest offering is the V36, a lightweight device similar in appearance to the other two, but incorporating a built-in color digital camera capable of capturing still images or short videos.
User-replaceable battery and other features
The V36 is powered by a 300 MHz Intel PXA255 processor and comes with 64 MB of RAM, 57 MB of which is available for running programs and data storage. It has 32 MB of flash ROM that's used for OS and program storage, but none of it is available to the end user. The manufacturer optimistically estimates 10 hours of continuous use on a fully-charged 930 mAh rechargeable, user-replaceable battery.
The V36 has a simple rectangular design with rounded edges, a silver-grey plastic front, and a black plastic back. The 3.5" diagonal, 65K-color touch screen uses transflective screen technology that strikes a reasonably good balance between indoor and outdoor readability.
At a little over 5 ounces, it's a reasonably light Pocket PC. It has the usual four application launch buttons with a small, round navigation pad centered between them (Screen 1). The navigation pad protrudes slightly more than the launch buttons, making it easy to find with your finger. In addition, the concave top makes it easier to feel the edge of the pad with your finger so you can select the direction you want (up, down, right, or left).
Screen 1: The ViewSonic has an easy-to-use 4-way navigation button.Screen 2: Note the fuzzy blob in the upper right hand corner of the second image. It's easy to cover the camera lens with your finger when you are holding the V36 horizontally to line up a shot. Watch out!
Integrated still image/video camera
The lens of the built-in digital camera is located on the back, next to the stylus silo. You use the screen as the viewfinder, and take the photo by pressing the navigation pad. The camera is 0.3 megapixels and capable of taking color 640x480- or 320x240-pixel still images (Screen 2). It can also capture color video with audio in 320x240- or 176x144-pixel screen sizes.
Screen 2: Note the fuzzy blob in the upper right-hand corner of the image. It's easy to cover the camera lens with your finger when you are holding the V36 horizontally to line up a shot.
The camera saves its videos in MPEG-4 format, which can be played back on the V36 using the built-in digital camera application. I had to have ViewSonic send me a small utility that installed the appropriate "codec" before I could view the videos on the desktop with Windows Media Player 9 (See Screen 3). The codec is available on Microsoft's Windows Media Player Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/format/codecdownload.aspx).
Screen 3: You can play the videos recorded with your V36 on desktop PC video players such as Windows Media Player 9 (shown here).
Windows Mobile 2003 software
Printer-friendly version
