Asus Mypal A600

Once you've forgiven Asus for the name of its second offering into the personal digital assistant (PDA) market, you'll be impressed by this diminutive Pocket PC device.

Asus's Mypal A600 is currently the world's smallest, lightest and thinnest Pocket PC PDA that also runs the fastest PDA processor (400MHz).

It comes with a Secure Digital (SD) slot for expansion, reflective LCD technology and the familiar Pocket PC 2002 software bundle.

A recent award winner at Computex Taipei 2002, the Mypal A600 boasts a number of high-end specifications that are housed in a stylish, high-quality aluminium alloy casing.

For a start, its dimensions are 75 x 125 x 13mm and it weighs just 139g. To put this in perspective, Palm's m515 weighs 139g, Compaq's equally impressive but chunky Ipaq H3870 is 189g, and HP's recently released Jornada 928 is 194g. Toshiba's E310 is virtually the same weight at 140g, although it comes with a Strongarm processor rather than Intel's recently released Xscale chip.

The Mypal A600 runs a 400MHz Intel Xscale PXA250 processor, uses 64MB of Ram and 32MB of Flash Rom for built-in applications, and has a bright and clear 3.5in TFT LCD display which runs at a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels, displaying up to 65,535 colours.

There's also a built-in mono speaker, integrated microphone, stereo headphone connector, an SD/MMC (Multimedia Card) slot for expanding (optional combination Compact Flash card adaptor is available) and an infrared port for wireless communications.

The fact that it is infrared-only is limiting, especially considering the lack of SD Bluetooth or 812.11 adaptors currently on the market. That said, there is a Compact Flash (CF) reader.

Asus clams an operational time of 15-16 hours from the unit's internal 1,200mA/h battery. This uses the company's proprietary SPS (Smart Power Saving) technology. While this is less powerful than the 1,400mA/h battery in Compaq's Ipaq H3870, it still delivered just over 10 hours of real-life use (or half this time with the screen on full brightness when using the backlight).

Two LEDs indicate whether the PDA is powered and charging, and the small power on/off button on the left side of the device is well positioned to minimise the risk of accidentally switching off the PDA.

A jogdial just below the power button lets you navigate menus and select options without using the stylus. The stylus itself is slightly longer than we would expect from such a PDA, and is made of reasonably sturdy black plastic.

A convenient addition is the one-touch voice recorder button that automatically launches Pocket PC 2002's voice recording utility.

Four hotkey buttons at the front are fully programmable to launch whatever applications you want, but out of the box are set to open Pocket Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and the Asus home page, where you can view and alter the configuration of the Mypal A600, such as Run Mode (Turbo, Standard, Power Saving and Automatic), and the brightness of the display. A four-way navigation dial that also houses the mono speaker is positioned in between these buttons.

Asus has produced a very attractive and compact PDA with a good price that should sell relatively well worldwide. There's still some way to go to improve battery life, and some sort of hardware to assist video playback (such as an mpeg-2 or mpeg-4 decoder) wouldn't go amiss either, but all manufacturers are in the same boat and are making the same promises for their next-generation models.

As it stands, the Mypal A600 is also one of the best-value Pocket PC PDAs around, and if you don't need integrated GPRS functionality and a wealth of software, it's worth popping into your local retailer to have a play.

SPECS

• 400MHz Intel Xscale processor
• 64MB of Ram
• 32MB of Rom
• Pocket PC 2002
• 3.5in 320 x 240 TFT screen
• SD slot
• Infrared port
• 139g
• 75 x 12.8 x 125mm (w x d x h)

£375 (£319 ex VAT)

Contact: Dabs www.dabs.com