HP Jornada 545

The 16Mb of RAM included with the Jornada 430se is unchanged in the 545, although HP is selling the 32Mb Jornada 548 for £374. In both the new Jornadas, the amount of ROM now stands at 16Mb, and there are several new programs included to justify this extra space. We covered Pocket Outlook, Media Player (for playing MP3 and Windows Media Audio files) and Microsoft Reader in our review of Pocket PC last month, and HP also pre-installs its own enhanced Settings applet and a useful Home menu. The latter provides customisable shortcut icons on screen to your favourite apps, similar to the PalmOS interface.

HP evidently values the Home program highly, as one of the four shortcut buttons on the Jornada is allocated to it. The other three provide quick access to Contacts, Calendar and Tasks, while a scrollable wheel and record button are located on the left-hand side of the machine. This simple, uncluttered interface should appeal to the mobile professional user, as should the solidly built cradle for synchronising. HP has learnt its lesson here, as the base is weighted down to make it extremely stable, whereas the Jornada 420's cradle rocked back when any pressure was applied.

This level of thought is typical of HP's new Jornada, and the end result is an impressive machine. Its current main rival is 3Com's Palm IIIc (reviewed issue 66, p173), and although HP can't match its £298 price tag or TFT screen, if you want a palm-sized PC for professional use rather than just a personal organiser, the Jornada is a more tempting proposition. However, the Compaq iPAQ is the outright winner for speed, so HP may soon find it will have to rely on corporate rather than consumer sales to retain market share.

Author: Tim Danton