Toshiba’s new e800 raises the bar on Pocket PC display quality. It has a bright and colorful 4-inch diagonal transflective touchscreen—the largest available on a Pocket PC. But to make things better, the e800 has the first Pocket PC screen capable of natively displaying full VGA resolution of 640x480 pixels (as well as the Pocket PC standard of 320x240). That’s enough to give other PDA manufacturers screen envy.
A feature-rich beauty
Although the screen is the high point of the e800, there are a lot of excellent features built into this attractive cobalt-blue device. The e800 runs the new Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC software and has a 400 MHz Intel PXA263 processor with XScale technology that dynamically adjusts itself to meet the needs of a particular application. You can also use a tab in the power settings utility to manually adjust the processor speed to 200, 300, or 400 MHz.
The e800’s abundant internal memory includes 128 MB of SDRAM, 32 MB of CMOS flash ROM for OS and built-in application storage, and 32 MB of NAND flash ROM, which can be accessed by the user to store data and other files. There’s even an ATI chipset with 2 MB of video memory to help speed up graphics display.
This Toshiba Pocket PC comes with built-in Wi-Fi (802.11b) capability that I tested with our network’s wireless LAN access point. After a minor glitch during setup, it worked like a charm. I was able to browse the Web from anywhere in the building without any problems. The e800 has two expansion card slots: one accepts Type I or II CompactFlash cards and one accepts SD or SDIO cards. The entire device is powered by a 1320 mAh user-replaceable rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Toshiba estimates you’ll get 4 hours of continuous use with a fully charged battery, which should translate to at least a day between charges for normal intermittent use. Battery life estimates vary depending on the type of applications you run.
Another look at that display
To display the VGA screen, select the Screen Resolution option from the Start menu. Because the e800’s display actually has the number of pixels needed to support this resolution, the resulting screen is very sharp and clear—more so than the software-based solutions from Nyditot (http://www.nyditot.com/home.htm) and Jimmy Software (http://www.jimmysoftware.com). At present, only a few software programs have been designed to take advantage of the VGA display, among them the ClearVue (http://www.westtek.com) file viewers included with the e800 (Screens 1 and 2) and NetFront v3.1 (http://www.handango.com). Hopefully, more will be available soon.
Screens 1 and 2: ClearVue Worksheet and other file viewers from Westtek let you display a variety of files and documents, including the Excel worksheets shown here. The ClearVue viewers are some of the few applications that can be displayed in the e800’s VGA mode (left) as well as in the Pocket PC’s regular 240x320-pixel mode (right).
Form and usability
The e800 is one of the larger consumer Pocket PCs, but it needs the added size to accommodate the larger screen, dual card slots, and built-in Wi-Fi. As it is, it’s small and lightweight enough to comfortably hold and use, and it fits easily in a handbag or coat pocket.
The external controls and buttons are well laid out with the exception of the power on/off switch, which is on the top of the device and a little too recessed to be easily pressed. Also, I don’t like the placement of the IrDA port, which is located on the bottom-left edge of the device making it awkward to “beam” information to another device.
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