If you want a stylish, well-made and cheap (OK, cheapish) Pocket PC, go out and spend £369 (or less if you shop around) on a Toshiba e310 right now. Good as the e310 is though, it's not desperately exciting.

For the latest in Pocket PC technology, those with cash on the hip should look at Toshiba's newest handheld.

The e740 is the e310's bigger brother, in every sense of the word. It has the same size colour screen and aluminium case but it's a few millimetres thicker and about a third heavier. As far as Pocket PCs go though, it's still a svelte little number.

That extra bulk is thanks to the extra features and the e740 has both a Type II Compact Flash slot and an SD card slot.

The CF slot opens up a whole host of add-ons, while you can add SD cards to hold music files or more memory. Not that you'll need more memory: the e740 comes with 64Mb, which is more than enough for all but the most demanding applications.

There's also a removable lithium ion battery, which means you can carry a couple with you for long journeys.

The e740's most interesting feature, however, is its processor: the new Intel XScale chip that runs at 400MHz.

Alas, while it sounds like a rocket, in use, it isn't. The e740 feels no faster that other Intel StrongARM 206 MHz Pocket PCs and in some cases (most notably video playback), it's actually slower.

Fortunately, the problem seems to lie with the software rather than the hardware but, until applications optimised for the XScale processor appear, the extra power will remain untapped.

The e740 is available in three models: standard and ones with built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for wireless networking. We tested the Bluetooth model or rather, it tested us.

No matter how much we coaxed, cajoled and cursed, we could not get the e740 to talk to our Bluetooth PC. We'll blame both devices though, since neither was simple to configure and the manuals for each were equally vague and unhelpful.

Price: £500 (incl. VAT)

Contact: Toshiba 01932 828 828
www.toshiba.co.uk

Also consider:
Toshiba E310. Our favourite Pocket PC. £369. Excellent.