Sony CLI PEG-SL10

Sony's new SL10 is aimed squarely at the budget end of the market. The mono screen and plastic casing give the game away, but a hard cover protects the screen. Our only gripe is that it flips over the top, covering the power button, Memory Stick slot and infrared port. Plus, we're unsure how much punishment the plastic clips on the cover will take before snapping off.

When used without the backlight, the screen can be hard to read in low light, but under office lighting it's much sharper and better contrasted than the m500. Outside in sunlight, its mirror-like reflectivity makes viewing difficult. The backlight is far better than the Palm m500's, though, and means you can still use the SL10 in darkness. The 320 x 320 resolution is also a bonus.

Another of the SL10's highlights is that it takes two AAA batteries, so it's easy to replace them when travelling and they give excellent battery life. No cradle is supplied, so synchronisation is achieved with a direct USB connection. This isn't a huge hardship, although we miss a cradle's convenient HotSync button.

Performance wasn't too sprightly - noticeably slower than the Palm m500, in fact. This appears to be due to the slow refresh of the screen rather than the 33MHz CPU. It shouldn't prove too frustrating in general use, though.

Surprisingly, given the price, Sony includes Documents To Go, but the usefulness of the bundled image-editing, viewing and movie apps on the mono screen is more dubious. With 8MB of memory, the expansion potential of the Memory Stick slot and the optional mini-keyboard, the SL10 is a good alternative to the Zire, but if you don't need these or a backlight the Zire is the better choice, costing more than £40 less.