Psion Series 5

Psion's follow-up to the Series 3a and 3c PDAs was the stuff of myth for a number of years, practically ever since the release of the original 3a. Now it's here, it's called the Series 5 and it's quite a step forward for Psion and for PDAs in general.

The rest of the PDA market hasn't stood still while Psion was working on the Series 5. US Robotics took a large piece of the market share with its PalmPilot (reviewed issue 32, p165) and, of course, the advent of Windows CE-based machines means there's some serious competition in the market for your PDA pound. The Series 5 is clearly aimed at the high end of that market, with specifications and software to match.

Physically, the Series 5 is an amalgam of the Series 3 and pen-based PDAs like the Newton and PalmPilot. It's only slightly larger than its predecessor, making it a similar size to most Windows CE systems, but almost 100g heavier than the Series 3 models. The case appears to be much sturdier than the Series 3, with a secure battery cover and tougher case hinges.

The exterior of the Series 5 is reminiscent of the Series 3. The right-hand side has a flap covering the new Compact Flash slot, supporting up to 10Mb cards. This replaces the old Psion proprietary SSD memory modules. Next to the Compact Flash slot is the holder for the Series 5 stylus, which is used for navigating through the on-screen menus and drawing. It's not used for handwriting recognition though, although you could write your name on the screen and use it in documents.

The front lip of the Series 5 holds three voice memo buttons. You can record and play back voice memos of up to about 12 minutes on the 4Mb model. The left-hand flap covers the backup battery and the reset hole. On the rear, built-in flaps retract to reveal the two AA batteries and RS232 serial port, which is the same as the ports on the Series 3c and Siena. Finally, there's an infrared port supporting the 115Kbits/sec IrDA 1 standard - unfortunately, this won't let you communicate with the infrared on the Series 3c and Siena.

Opening the Series 5 usually impresses people. As the screen is lifted up, it slides the keyboard forward on a pivot. This leaves the device in a stable position that won't rock back and forth when you use the stylus. The keyboard itself has much bigger individual keys than on the Series 3, and the compact layout is adequate for touch-typing. I had no problem entering plenty of text after a little practice. You can also type with two thumbs, a trick that many Series 3 users will be used to.

The Series 5's screen sports a larger resolution than the Series 3's, at 640 x 240. This manages 100 characters on each of its 26 visible lines. Around the screen are various icons, with the bottom holding the seven core applications, the System icon and the Extras icon. The latter opens up to show less commonly used applications and any user installed ones. An extra set of icons sits at the left edge of the screen, and lets you open the menus, use the Clipboard, the infrared and control the zoom. The screen also has a backlight, which helps in low-light conditions, but will drain the batteries.

Overall, battery life has dropped on the Series 5, to an estimated 35 hours. This is partly due to the backlight, but it's also because of the ARM 7100 processor inside, supplied by Cirrus Logic. It runs at 18.432MHz, which is about four-and-a-half times faster than a Series 3c.

The operating system running on the ARM processor is EPOC/32, a 32-bit OS which Psion hopes will later be licensed to other hardware manufacturers. It's very different from the previous Psion OS in look and feel and is generally a lot more intuitive and 'human'. If you've used a Psion before you'll probably feel comfortable with it, as the general layout is much the same. Menus have been re-organised to be more consistent between applications, and screen layouts make effective use of the touch screen. Keyboard shortcuts have also been improved to be more like a desktop PC's.