Toshiba's Powerful New Pocket PC e755

Looks can be deceiving, especially when you're reviewing the new Toshiba Pocket PC e755. Outwardly it has the same slim, understated design of its predecessor, the Toshiba e740. It also has many of the same built-in and add-on applications. But the new top-of-the-line Toshiba sports a bigger and brighter screen, a faster processor, and more internal memory. In fact, it's probably the most powerful, versatile Pocket PC on the market.

Powerful new processor handles graphics well

The only noticeable physical difference between the e755 and the original e740 is the larger 3.8" diagonal 240x320 pixel display. The e740's measured 3.5". The larger screen size and the use of "transflective" screen technology make the e755's display very viewable indoors, and reasonably so outdoors even in direct sunlight.

TThe e755 is powered by the new Intel PXA 255 processor with XScale technology. Like the original PXA 250, it is rated at 400 MHz. But the PXA 255 has a 200 MHz system bus as opposed to the 100 MHz bus of the earlier chip. This means that the processor communicates twice as fast with the memory and display. In addition, it has an ATI graphics controller with 384 KB internal video memory. The PXA 255 chip consumes less power than the earlier chip, and there is a CPU Speed function in the Settings > System > Power utility that lets you set the device speed to either 400 or 200 MHz. The lower speed will further conserve battery power.

Screen 1 (above): Expansion Pack for the e740/750/755 adds an RGB-out and USB host port to the Toshiba Pocket PC

My experience with the e755 is that applications open and close quickly and documents and data files load quickly. I installed the graphics-intensive game Interstellar Flames (www.xengames.com/Products.htm) on the Toshiba e755 and on my Dell Axim X5 (which has the earlier PX 250 processor). The difference was noticeable, but not earth-shaking. Interstellar Flames was a little easier to view on the larger screen and seemed to run a little faster. I also installed Pocket TV (www.pockettv.com) on both devices and watched a few movie trailers in mpeg format. Again, the video was a little easier to see on the e755's larger screen. However, the mpeg videos ran smoothly on both devices. This is probably because Pocket TV has not been optimized to take advantage of the ATI graphics controller on the e755. Pocket TV developer Tristan Savatier says that support for the controller will be included in a future release of Pocket TV.

I also downloaded some videos in Windows Media format and viewed them on both devices using Windows Media Player. This time I did notice a clear difference. The e755 handled WMF video better--the video display was smoother and there were fewer dropped frames. My tests were subjective "eye ball" comparisons; however, bench mark tests done in other reviews indicate that the graphics performance of the e755 is better than that of Pocket PCs with the PXA250 processor.

Screen 2 (above): IA Presenter lets you display presentations on or from the Pocket PC

Built-in Wi-Fi