Fujitsu Siemens Pocket LOOX 420

The slim gunmetal grey LOOX is built for business. Not only is it stylish, but it oozes quality. From a solid docking cradle that doesn't budge when you nudge it, to the rubber pads on the chassis' underside to stop it moving about on the desk, this is a PDA that has been carefully engineered.

Fujitsu Siemens also gets the basics right. Since the buttons are all so large, hitting them - and using the five distinct navigation buttons - becomes that much easier. Even the stylus is superior, with a round design rather than the flat stylus that comes with Dell's Axim X30, and a more substantial feel than that of the iPAQ H4150.

Bluetooth and 802.11b WLAN are both built in. The infrared port is inconveniently placed at the bottom-left of the chassis, but at least the 3.5mm headphone jack and SD/MMC slot, which also supports SDIO cards, are located at the top of the device. Fujitsu Siemens sacrifices a jog dial in the process, but the bigger surprise is that you can't back up to built-in memory - you must use an SD card.

Where the LOOX strikes back is screen quality, with impressive viewing angles and more vivid colours than the Axim. A potentially more telling difference is that Fujitsu Siemens provides bonus software that can be downloaded from www.pocketloox-choice.com. You have three points to spend, but many of the titles look more like freeware than commercial packages. Also note that only the original version of Windows Mobile Edition for Pocket PC is included as standard, not the Second Edition; Fujitsu Siemens plans to offer a free download of the updated OS later this summer.

There's no revolutionary processor on show either, just Intel's standard 400MHz PXA255, but it slices through video and everyday apps with the same aplomb as the PXA270.

What's more, the battery lasted for a stunning seven hours under light-use with the backlight on, which compares to between four and five hours from its rivals. Playing back MP3s was a similar story: ten hours versus five. All this pushes the LOOX ahead of the opposition - and it's at the right price too.

Author: Tim Danton