NEC Mobile Pro 200E

The Mobile Pro 200E is one of the slimmest PDAs on the market and yet is still as fully featured as you'd expect from a £300 Pocket PC.

However, as it's still as tall and wide as even the largest PDA, it does feel odd to hold; we would have preferred to see the overall size shrunk down as opposed to just one aspect of it.

Also included in the box were a standard USB cradle, car power adaptor and AC adaptor, which can handily plug into the cradle and the device itself.

Using a 200MHz Xscale Intel processor, and with 64MB of memory, it's no slouch, particularly for £300. Also impressive is the 240 x 320 resolution 3.5in screen, which is bright, colourful and even.

On the other hand, the stylus leaves a lot to be desired. Given the 200E's height, we would have expected a stylus that extended to more than 4in.

Both an extendable silver version and a clear full-length version are supplied, though the full-length version can't fit into the slot.

The Mobile Pro 200E is easy to use, with nearly all the ports and buttons you could wish for scattered around its chassis. The five-way button on the front is large enough for even the clumsiest of fingers, as are the four surrounding shortcut keys.

The speaker is reasonable for a PDA, but using headphones is preferable. The headphone socket to the right, and the USB connection, can double up as a microphone-in.

The left-hand side has a jog dial, soft reset and a shortcut to Pocket PC's Dictaphone application, while there's also an SD card slot and infrared port on top.

There's no 802.11 or Bluetooth access here, but at £300, and with an eight-hour battery life, we already feel quite spoilt.

DETAILS
Price: £299 (£254.47 ex VAT)
Contact: NEC 0870 0106 3225
www.nec.co.uk

SPECS

• 200MHz Intel Xscale processor
• 64MB of Ram
• 32MB of Rom
• Pocket PC 2002
• 3.5in, 240 x 320 TFT, 16bit colour
• SD/IO slot
• Infrared port
• 130g
• 122 x 76 x 11mm (w x d x h)
• USB connection