About a year ago, ViewSonic helped usher in the era of low-cost Pocket PCs with the introduction of its $300 V35 (http://www.PocketPCmag.com/Mar03/v35.asp). They followed up on that with the V37, a more robust model with a faster processor, more memory, and a quite reasonable $350 price tag. Their latest offering is the V36, a lightweight device similar in appearance to the other two, but incorporating a built-in color digital camera capable of capturing still images or short videos.

User-replaceable battery and more

The V36 is powered by a 300 MHz Intel PXA255 processor and comes with 64 MB of RAM, 57 MB of which is available for running programs and data storage. It has 32 MB of flash ROM that’s used for OS and program storage, but none of it is available to the end user. The manufacturer optimistically estimates 10 hours of continuous use on a fully-charged 930 mAh rechargeable, user-replaceable battery.

The V36 has a simple rectangular design with rounded edges, a silver-grey plastic front, and a black plastic back. The 3.5" diagonal, 65K-color touch screen uses transflective screen technology that strikes a reasonably good balance between indoor and outdoor readability.

At a little over 5 ounces, it’s a reasonably light Pocket PC. It has the usual four application launch buttons with a small, round navigation pad centered between them (Screen 1). The navigation pad protrudes slightly more than the launch buttons, making it easy to find with your finger. In addition, the concave top makes it easier to feel the edge of the pad with your finger so you can select the direction you want (up, down, right, or left).

Screen 1: The ViewSonic has an easy-to-use 4-way navigation button.

Integrated still image/video camera

The lens of the built-in digital camera is located on the back, next to the stylus silo. You use the screen as the viewfinder, and take the photo by pressing the navigation pad. The camera is 0.3 megapixels and capable of taking color 640x480- or 320x240-pixel still images (Screen 2). It can also capture color video with audio in 320x240- or 176x144-pixel screen sizes.

Screen 2: Note the fuzzy blob in the upper right hand corner. It's easy to cover the camera lens with your finger when you are holding the V36 horizontally. Watch out!

The camera saves its videos in MPEG-4 format, which can be played back on the V36 using the built-in digital camera application. I had to have ViewSonic send me a small utility that installed the appropriate “codec” before I could view the videos on the desktop with Windows Media Player 9 (See Screen 3). The codec is available on Microsoft’s Windows Media Player Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmed...).

Screen 3: You can play the videos recorded with your V36 on desktop PC video players such as Windows Media Player 9 (shown here).

Windows Mobile 2003 software

The ViewSonic V36 comes with Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Premium Edition, which includes the Windows Mobile operating system (Windows CE 4.2), Pocket Outlook (Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and Inbox), Pocket Internet Explorer, Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, Pictures, Notes, File Explorer, Windows Media Player 9.0, text and character entry software (soft keyboard, Transcriber, single-character handwriting recognition software), Solitaire, Jawbreaker, Calculator, Voice Recorder, Asset Viewer, MS Messenger, various setup and configuration utilities, VPN Client, Server Sync client, Infrared Beaming, and built-in support for external keyboard functions. Microsoft has a complete overview of these applications on its Windows Mobile Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/prod...).

ViewSonic Camera and Advanced Settings applications

Other than the Windows Mobile applications, the primary built-in application is ViewSonic Camera, the program that allows the Pocket PC to interface with the physical camera so you can take photos and capture videos. The application’s user interface is nice looking, but resembles what you’d find on a stand-alone digital camera more than it does a Pocket PC application (Screen 4). I found it a little hard to figure out until I went back and read the camera’s user manual.

Screen 4: The ViewSonic Camera application built into the V36 interfaces with the digital camera to let you capture still images and videos.

In addition to the camera application, ViewSonic has included Advanced Settings, a setup and configuration utility accessed from the Start > Settings > System folder. Advanced Settings provides system information, allows you to configure the Pocket PC to “wake up” when a hardware button is pressed or a storage card is inserted, and lets you conserve battery power by adjusting the processor speed from “Superior Performance” (300 MHz ) to “Low Performance” (200 MHz) when you don’t need that extra performance (Screen 5).

Screen 5: ViewSonic Advanced Settings lets you select performance levels and more.

ViewSonic has also included a data backup utility called eBackup. This simple application lets you back up or restore everything in RAM, or just in individual PIM databases (Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, or Inbox).

Add-on applications

The companion CD has the usual Microsoft desktop PC applications: ActiveSync 3.7 (for Pocket PC to desktop PC data synchronization and program installation), Outlook 2002, and Windows Media Player 9.0, as well as user guides in Adobe Acrobat Reader .pdf format for the V36 and the digital camera application.

It also includes a full version of AvantGo, a mobile Internet service that provides free access to content optimized for your Pocket PC. There is a link to the download section of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Web site, which offers games and applications for the Pocket PC. The majority of these must be purchased, but a few are free. To find them, do a site search on “freeware.”

Finally, the companion CD includes a full version of ClearVue Presentation v2.11 (http://www.westtek.com), a Pocket PC presentation viewer that lets you view native Microsoft Office 97, 2000, and XP PowerPoint (.ppt) files without ActiveSync conversion (Screens 6 and 7). It supports timed transitions, custom animation, and the insertion of text, fonts, images, auto-shapes, charts, and graphs. It automatically rotates the presentation in full-screen mode, maximizing the use of your Pocket PC’s screen.

Screens 6 and 7: A user-installable version of ClearVue Presentation is included with the ViewSonic V36. Left is the All Slides view, below is the individual slide view.

Unique Pocket PC is a relative bargain

The camera’s user interface looks more like one you’d find on a stand-alone digital camera (Screen 4)—very different from the UI found on a standard Pocket PC application. I’m not a particularly avid photographer and don’t use my stand-alone digital camera very much. Hence, I found the ViewSonic Camera application hard to figure out. Would someone familiar with a standard camera interface find it as confusing as I did? Probably not. But if they were an avid photographer, they would probably be using a stand-alone camera to take pictures—not the V36. ViewSonic should probably have designed the UI to look more like a standard Pocket PC application, but this is not a huge deal. Spend 5-10 minutes with the camera’s user guide and you should be able to figure everything out.

I’ve read conflicting opinions about the quality of the V36’s digital camera. No, it’s not the quality of a multi-megapixel stand-alone camera. But the idea behind adding a digital camera to a handheld device is to provide a way to snap a photo of something that interests you so that you can view it later on your handheld or desktop PC, or e-mail it to a friend who will view it on another mobile device or desktop PC. For those purposes, I think the digital camera on the V36 is fine. I’ve also read conflicting opinions about the V36’s display. It’s not quite as rich as some Pocket PC displays, but it’s still easily readable indoors, and reasonably so outdoors.

The V36 comes with a full version of the ClearVue Presentation software, but little else in terms of user-installable software. They might consider adding a more full-featured image viewer.

ViewSonic’s online store was selling the V36 for $299 as of December 12, 2003. At the same time it was available on Amazon.com for $279.99 minus a $100 mail-in rebate—$180 is a pretty reasonable price for a Pocket PC with a built-in digital camera. Of course, pricing and rebates may change by the time you read this review. But it looks like the V36 will remain a relative bargain.