Product Reviews

The iPAQ may take most of the headlines and sales in the Pocket PC market, but Toshiba's e740 boasted its share of great features. Aimed squarely at the professional, it not only had great expandability - note the Type II CompactFlash and SD/MMC card slots - but also an understated brushed aluminium design and excellent build quality.

It even had a unique selling point: via the optional expansion pack, which costs about £20 and includes a VGA output and USB port, you could connect a keyboard and a projector. The e750 goes two steps further. You can now send 16-bit colour to a projector instead of the e740's 256-colour maximum, at a resolution of 800 x 600. And this WiFi version connects wirelessly to a suitably equipped Toshiba projector.

Another WiFi enhancement is support for Voice-over IP. The e750 is compatible with PocketGphone, for instance, and Toshiba has also enhanced the microphone socket so that a microphone headset can be used.

Toshiba hasn't made any serious changes to the chassis, unless you count slightly modified front buttons, so all the e740's peripherals work with the e750 - for example, the high-capacity battery pack (£94). The only notable physical change is the 3.8in transflective screen as opposed to the 3.5in screen in the e740. The extra 0.3in won't make a huge difference in general use, but the new screen's

ADVERTISEMENT

rich colours and bright backlighting shouldn't be ignored.

There are quite a few changes underneath the surface too. The 400MHz PXA250 processor has been 'upgraded' to the 400MHz PXA255, promising performance increases of up to 40 per cent. In general use, the changes were barely noticeable, but our integer maths benchmark showed a stunning 76 per cent increase, so clearly something is happening under the bonnet.

Intel claims the new processor will also extend battery life, but this is only notable if you drop the speed from 400MHz to 200MHz. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the option to change automatically depending on the demands of the current task (unlike Dell's Axim X5 - see issue 100, p129). Still, it lasted for more than three hours over three days, and with the ability to charge directly from the PSU rather than through the docking cradle - plus the optional extended life battery - this won't be a problem.

Another bonus is the extra 32MB of Flash memory that Toshiba includes. This means you should never lose all your vital data, and also avoids ActiveSync forcing you to set up a new partnership with the same device. With 64MB of 'normal' RAM included as well, there's a fair amount of storage for additional apps and data. It's also worth noting that Toshiba is offering an upgrade to Pocket PC 2003 when this is released. If you'd prefer Bluetooth connectivity to WiFi, Toshiba will be releasing the e750 Bluetooth in June 2003, with Pocket PC 2003 as standard.

The e750 WiFi offers a number of excellent improvements on the e740, but it's a shame Toshiba doesn't include the expansion pack as standard - at this price, we expect a little more in the box, and Toshiba should make more of this unique feature. Also, bear in mind that HP's iPAQ H5450 costs about £450 and includes Bluetooth, WiFi and fingerprint-recognition security. Perhaps more tellingly still, Dell's Axim X5 Performance costs a mere £219.