Product Reviews

When the Series 5 burst on to the handheld PC scene two years ago it was a computing and design revelation. As well as walking straight into PC Pro's A List - and staying there ever since - the Series 5 deservedly won the Grand Prix award from the Design Business Association. Not only was it a powerful computer itself, the Series 5 also included a full suite of software and the best keyboard in a handheld unit by far.

With the 5mx, Psion is hoping to take its flagship product one step further, marketing it as the ultimate mobile Internet package. For once this is more than just marketing jargon: the 5mx now includes Psion's email program built into the ROM and it even supports Java.

However, the most important change for the majority of users is the 5mx's processor, which runs at twice the speed of that of its predecessor. In combination with a tightened EPOC code, this provides a dramatic improvement in performance: on every single occasion, our sample documents opened more than twice as fast as on the Series 5, and a find and replace command in Word showed similar improvements.

Internal memory has been boosted to 10Mb of ROM for storing the operating system and all the pre-installed programs,æand you also get 16Mb of RAM. Turn your 5mx into a mobile Internet package, however, and you'll soon find this extra space disappearing. Should you choose to install the Message Suite, be prepared to lose over 900Kb of RAM; adding support for Java swallows nearly 3Mb. To access the Internet you'll still need a mobile phone, modem and plenty of patience, since even with the boosted processor the 5mx loads images slowly.

Psion is emphasising that support for Java is much more than the facility to run applets on Web pages. The company sees this move as opening the Psion/EPOC platform to a new world of Java programmers, with the 'write once, run anywhere' motto also applying to in-house developers. Whether the market develops in this way remains to be seen, but it certainly makes for interesting possibilities.

For the moment, the change that corporate users will be most grateful for is improved integration with PC applications. One major bug fix from the Series 5 is integration with Microsoft Outlook. The 5mx includes a dedicated Contacts program, including a physical button

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at the bottom of the screen that mimics the layout of Outlook, so missing contact information should be a thing of the past. The Outlook feel extends to the email program, which is now pre-installed in the 5mx's ROM. There's also support for all the other major PIMs and Lotus Notes, with email synchronisation for the latter being introduced at the end of this year. Another useful feature of the email program is the ability to create, send and receive SMS and fax messages.

Most other applications have only benefited from minor tweaks. For example, Word now supports outlines for complex documents, Agenda has a busy view and Sheet has a sort facility. Despite the new Contacts program, Data remains unchanged. The only other significant change - unless you count the addition of a Recent Files tab in the system toolbar - is the introduction of the note-taking Jotter program.

The most obvious and impressive transformations have actually occurred on the outside of the machine. Even the biggest Series 5 fans knew in their heart of hearts that the product wasn't perfect. Most notably, the Series 5's rubberised coating was famous for flaking off when scratched, or even looked at severely. With the 5mx, Psion has now switched to the trendy silver look. On closer examination this is rigid plastic rather than metal, but more importantly it takes a deliberate effort to create a scratch mark, so the 5mx should still look quite stylish after a year's use.

The screen has also been upgraded; it's now clearer and less reflective than that of its predecessor. As well as making the computer more pleasant to use, it also means you won't have to use the backlight so often. And to round things off, the backlight itself has been improved. The irritating humming of the Series 5's backlight is now a thing of the past, and it also uses around 30 per cent less power in operation.

One area Psion has steered well away from is colour. Despite the fact that mono Windows CE devices are now virtually impossible to find, Psion claims to have delayed making this leap for two reasons: cost and battery life. Of the two, battery life is the more convincing. There's no colour HPC on the market that can last for ten hours, even if using lithium ion batteries, whereas the Psion is quite happy for around 20 hours using just a pair of alkaline AA cells. The cost argument still holds some water, with the 5mx selling for £144 less than the HP Jornada 680 (reviewed issue 57, p154 ), although the Jornada contains a faster processor - necessary for running Windows CE - and a modem.

Although none of the changes in the 5mx are jaw-dropping in their magnitude, they add up to a comprehensive upgrade to the Series 5 that more than justifies the new name. Its speed, design and mobility combine to push the Series 5mx far ahead of the Windows CE pack - and they hadn't even caught up with the Series 5.