Viewsonic Pocket PC V35

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Manufacturer: Viewsonic
Price: £229
Requirements: A pocket
Web Site: WWW.VIEWSONIC.COM

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THE FIRST THING you notice about the V35 Pocket PC from Viewsonic is how light it is. It weighs a mere 118g (4.2 oz). The second point to note is its price - £229 (or £194 ex VAT) -which is competitively priced compared to the normal asking price for an iPAQ, for example.

So anyone searching around for an entry level colour PDA should consider the V35. Where's the catch?

The only really major drawback is its lack of connectivity options. This is because the V35 sports no CF (Compact Flash) interface slot. It does have an SD (Secure Digital) Card interface but as I discovered in this release that SD slot is purely for extra storage.

That means it's not currently feasible to add a GPRS or Wi-Fi capability to the V35. There's also no built-in support for Bluetooth so you can't even consider putting an SD Bluetooth card from Toshiba into the V35 at present.

If you want to get data into or out of the V35, you got the choice of the USB port connected cradle to another PC or you can try to use its IrDA compatible infra-red port. I managed to send a few emails via an infra-red enabled GSM handset.

The feature I liked most about the V35 was its transreflective screen. It supports up to 64K colours and screen display is apparently just 320 by 240 dpi. But in practice if viewing the V35 in bright sunlight it was very easy to view the screen's contents.

In terms of battery life, the V35 supposedly lasts for a complete day's work (8 hours) but it definitely didn't last that long for us. A quick peek in the manual revealed that those sort of times can only be achieved with the back light turned off, however.

The one thing I missed was a stylus that pops out when you depress it. It's easy to see how Viewsonic has kept the price down by skimping on connectivity but it's a lot prettier than the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox by comparison.

Just for the record the V35 boasts an Intel PXA250 running at 300 MHz with 64MB of RAM and 32KB of ROM as standard. µ

* You may be able to get better deals on this PDA by comparing prices here.