Toshiba's new e800 raises the bar on Pocket PC
display quality. It has a bright and colorful 4-inch diagonal
transflective touchscreen—the largest available on a Pocket PC. But
to make things better, the e800 has the first Pocket PC screen
capable of natively displaying full VGA resolution of 640x480 pixels
(as well as the Pocket PC standard of 320x240). That's enough to
give other PDA manufacturers screen envy.
A feature-rich beauty
Although the screen is the high point of the
e800, there are a lot of excellent features built into this
attractive cobalt-blue device. The e800 runs the new Windows Mobile
2003 for Pocket PC software and has a 400 MHz Intel PXA263 processor
with XScale technology that dynamically adjusts itself to meet the
needs of a particular application. You can also use a tab in the
power settings utility to manually adjust the processor speed to
200, 300, or 400 MHz.
The e800's abundant internal memory includes 128
MB of SDRAM, 32 MB of CMOS flash ROM for OS and built-in application
storage, and 32 MB of NAND flash ROM, which can be accessed by the
user to store data and other files. There's even an ATI chipset with
2 MB of video memory to help speed up graphics display.
This Toshiba Pocket PC comes with built-in Wi-Fi
(802.11b) capability that I tested with our network's wireless LAN
access point. After a minor glitch during setup, it worked like a
charm. I was able to browse the Web from anywhere in the building
without any problems. The e800 has two expansion card slots: one
accepts Type I or II CompactFlash cards and one accepts SD or SDIO
cards. The entire device is powered by a 1320 mAh user-replaceable
rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Toshiba estimates you'll get 4
hours of continuous use with a fully charged battery, which should
translate to at least a day between charges for normal intermittent
use. Battery life estimates vary depending on the type of
applications you run.
Another look at that display
To display the VGA screen, select the Screen
Resolution option from the Start menu. Because the e800's display
actually has the number of pixels needed to support this resolution,
the resulting screen is very sharp and clear—more so than the
software-based solutions from Nyditot (http://www.nyditot.com/home.htm)
and Jimmy Software (http://www.jimmysoftware.com).
At present, only a few software programs have been designed to take
advantage of the VGA display, among them the ClearVue (http://www.westtek.com)
file viewers included with the e800 (Screens 1 and 2) and NetFront
v3.1 (http://www.handango.com).
Hopefully, more will be available soon.
Screens 1 and 2: ClearVue Worksheet and other
file viewers from Westtek let you display a variety of files and
documents, including the Excel worksheets shown here. The ClearVue
viewers are some of the few applications that can be displayed in
the e800's VGA mode (left) as well as in the Pocket PC's regular
240x320-pixel mode (right).
Form and usability
The e800 is one of the larger consumer Pocket
PCs, but it needs the added size to accommodate the larger screen,
dual card slots, and built-in Wi-Fi. As it is, it's small and
lightweight enough to comfortably hold and use, and it fits easily
in a handbag or coat pocket.
The external controls and buttons are well laid
out with the exception of the power on/off switch, which is on the
top of the device and a little too recessed to be easily pressed.
Also, I don't like the placement of the IrDA port, which is located
on the bottom-left edge of the device making it awkward to "beam"
information to another device.
Our editor, Rich Hall, tested the device and had
problems with the voice record button on the top-left edge. Toshiba
includes a custom Voice Recorder application (Screen 3) that works a
little differently than the Microsoft voice record function, which
is still associated with Notes. By default, Toshiba associates its
program with the voice record hardware button. With the Toshiba
application, you tap the record button once to start recording, and
again to stop. With Microsoft's version, you press and hold down the
record button to record, and let up to end the recording. Rich found
that it was easy to accidentally start a voice recording when he
picked up the device. The solution is to engage the manual Hold
button, also located on the left edge of the device. With the
exception of the power on/off button, this locks all the major
hardware controls on the e800. If you prefer Microsoft's version of
this utility, you can go to the Start>Settings>Buttons utility and
assign Microsoft "Record" to this or any of the four other
application launch buttons.
Screen 3: Toshiba includes its own Toshiba Voice
Recorder application, in addition to the voice recorder function
built into Microsoft's Notes application.
Unlike the other Pocket PCs reviewed in this
issue, the e800 does include a scroll button, also located on the
left edge. It lets you move up and down on pages and through dialog
boxes, and select items by pressing in on the button. It's really
handy to have when you're reading an eBook or e-mail, or viewing
your Contacts list.
The navigation pad and four application launch
buttons are located on the front of the device below the screen, in
a unique rectangular design. You can configure the navigation pad
for 4-way or 8-way directional control (up, up-left, left,
down-left, etc.). This 8-way mode and the large display should
enhance the game playing experience on the device.
A variety of LEDs show you when the device is
charging, when it's fully charged, and when Wi-Fi is enabled, and
also light up for alarms and notifications. Icons in the screen's
title bar indicate when Wi-Fi is in peer-to-peer mode, and when it's
off or not connected. An icon also appears to tell you when the Hold
button is activated.
Both the CF and SDIO card slots are located on
the top of the device. The CF slot has an ejector button next to it,
which makes it easy to remove a card from the slot. A plastic dummy
filler fills the CF card slot and covers the opening when you're not
using a CF card. Don't lose this!
Located on the top left edge is a 3.5 mm
combination stereo headphone/microphone jack. The built-in
microphone located next to this jack is convenient, but the ability
to use an optional hand-held microphone in noisy environments is a
welcome addition. A telescoping stylus is housed in a slot on the
top right edge. However, even when fully extended, the stylus is a
little short. Maybe a third-party developer can come up with a
longer stylus.
The bottom has a standard power input jack,
which uses the familiar "cannon"-type power plug. Next to it is a
40-pin USB port that connects to the USB cradle that ships with the
e800 or to an optional USB sync cable. The cradle has a cable with
two heads, allowing you to connect to either the USB or the serial
port on your desktop/laptop PC. Next to the cradle connector is a
switch to manually turn on/off the 802.11b wireless. It's nice to
have this switch to save power when you don't need the wireless.
Finally, the soft-reset switch is located on the left side panel.
You can also perform a hard reset by holding down the power switch
and pressing the soft-reset switch with your stylus. (Don't do this
if you have any data on your device that you want to save. It
totally erases all data and restores everything to factory
settings.)
Standard and optional accessories
Toshiba makes two versions of this Pocket PC:
the e800 and the e805. They are identical packages except that the
e805 ships with a digital photo-album program called ArcSoft
PhotoBase. The standard accessories that come with both packages
include a stylus, a USB/serial data cradle, an AC power adapter,
user and quick-start guides, and a companion software CD. In
addition, Toshiba will offer a variety of optional accessories for
the device, including:
- Replacements for the standard accessories
- USB power/sync cable
- Battery charger
- High capacity (2640 mAh) rechargeable battery
- USB host keyboard cable
- Stylus pen (3-pack)
- Screen protection overlays
- Earphones
Toshiba will also offer the Picture View
Presentation Pack, an adapter that adds an RGB monitor port and a
USB host port to the bottom of the e800 (Screen 4). The USB host
port lets you connect to and use USB peripherals—keyboards, hard
drives, and the like—as long as appropriate Pocket PC driver
software is available.
Screen 4: The optional Picture View Presentation
Pack adds RGB monitor and USB host ports to the e800.
Excellent software from Microsoft and Toshiba
Toshiba's e800 comes with the Premium Edition of
the Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC software, which includes the
Windows CE 4.2 operating system, a rich suite of productivity and
entertainment applications, various setup and configuration
utilities, and a whole lot more. The software is more fully
described in our At A Glance section on page 84. A review of the
enhancements Windows Mobile 2003 brought to the platform can be
found in our November 2003 issue (http://www.PocketPCmag.com/nov03/windowsmobile2003.asp).
In addition to the software from Microsoft,
Toshiba included a number of applications, setup programs, and
utilities that enhance the functionality.
Software built into the e800
These additional software programs and utilities
are built into the e800. The programs with Web addresses after them
are available for other Pocket PCs as well.
Software on companion CD
Microsoft includes the following programs (or
links to them) on the companion CD:
- ActiveSync 3.7 is a program that synchronizes data between
your Pocket PC and your desktop PC.
- Outlook 2002 is a desktop PC personal information manager.
- Windows Media Player 9.0 is a desktop PC audio and video
player.
In addition, Toshiba includes the following
user-installable software on the CD:
- Adobe Acrobat Reader for Pocket PC (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readerforppc.html)—Read
Adobe .pdf files.
- ATI Presentation Pack (http://www.iastyle.com)
includes two IA Style programs. IA Presenter lets you display
Microsoft PowerPoint presentations on your Pocket PC. In
combination with the RGB monitor port on the optional Presentation
Pack, IA Screen Mirror lets you connect to and display
presentations through a monitor or projector.
- ClearVue Suite Documentation (http://www.westtek.com).
A .pdf version of the documentation for the ClearVue file viewers
built into the e800 series.
- Jetcet Print for Pocket PC—Trial Version (http://www.westtek.com)
lets you print documents from your Pocket PC.
- Toshiba Text-to-Speech for Pocket PC translates text documents
on your Pocket PC into computer-generated speech.
- Toshiba User Guide. A .pdf version of the full users manual
for the Toshiba e400 and e800 series.
- Toshiba Voice Command lets you open applications and documents
with voice commands.
- Toshiba Wireless Projector Utility and Documentation. The
utility lets you send the screen image from a Toshiba e800
equipped with an optional RGB-out port, to a presentation
projector for display.
- ArcSoft PhotoBase (http://www.arcsoft.com)
is a digital photo-album program with slide-show capability. As
mentioned earlier, this program comes with the e805 only.
A "must have" for Pocket PC enthusiasts
Despite the few and minor shortcomings described
above, the Toshiba e800 is a stylish, feature-packed device with a
revolutionary screen. Both the e800 and the e805 cost $599, and
that's a little pricey for the current batch of Pocket PCs. But the
expandability provided by the two card slots, the ample internal
storage, the optional RGB-out and USB host capabilities, and, most
importantly, the innovative technology incorporated into the large
screen make the Toshiba e800 a "must have" device for the serious
Pocket PC enthusiast. |
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