Toshiba e800 WiFi

The e800 is twice the PDA of the e400, not just in terms of its model number but its sheer size. But what sets the e800 apart from its sibling and, indeed, every other PDA on the market is its massive 4in screen. At first sight, it just looks like a larger version of what has gone before, but this is a 480 x 640 affair, dwarfing the 240 x 320 resolutions of other Pocket PCs.

There are a couple of catches, though. The full-size resolution only works with the bundled ClearVue applications - for viewing Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents - and these don't allow you to edit the files. You must reset the device to switch between resolutions too. As such, the only times you'll take advantage of the extra space will be when reading through documents and making presentations. Then again, this could be quite often, as Toshiba provides every incentive to replace your notebook with the e800 WiFi. You can broadcast to 802.11b projectors wirelessly, while the optional Expansion Pack (£20) allows presentations at 800 x 600 at 60Hz - no other special connectors are required and a standard VGA output is provided.

There's a huge amount of room for storing files too, with 128MB of RAM built into the e800. If this isn't enough, you can add more thanks to a Type II CompactFlash slot and an SD/MMC slot. This also provides a simple way of adding Bluetooth to the PDA, or you can buy the e800 Bluetooth version for around the same price.

We suspect the WiFi version reviewed here will be the bigger seller, especially as Toshiba includes some utilities to make connecting to hotspots easy. We particularly like the 'Search for Wireless Devices' app, which displays all the detected access points orbiting around your PDA and reveals their signal strength.

You can also use the e800 as a phone using Voice over IP, although this appears destined to be a niche usage. The same is probably true of the Voice Command app, which allows you to activate programs, control settings and even paste predefined text into fields by voice alone. However, it only worked intermittently in an office environment and is unlikely to persuade many people to abandon their stylus.

We were a little surprised to discover the e800 has a telescopic stylus - the e800 is so big, there seems little reason to sacrifice on this. We aren't big fans of placing the infrared port on the bottom-left of the unit either, but we were pleased to see the Hold button nearby. This comes into its own when playing back music, and you can expect five hours, 30 minutes of playback from the e800, while it lasted for six hours, 30 minutes in our light-use, backlight-off tests. It also benefits from a removable battery and an optional 2,640mAh battery pack. Battery life can be boosted by tweaking the speed of the Intel processor, but we preferred to keep it at the default setting as it proved to be fast.

It all adds up to one bruiser of a PDA and is a great alternative to the HP iPAQ H5550 (see issue 110, p133). The H5550 wins for security thanks to fingerprint recognition, the inclusion of both Bluetooth and 802.11b, and a more attractive design, but the e800's screen and presentation abilities make it a fine alternative.

Author: Tim Danton