2. E310 Vs. Everyone Else

Compared with other Pocket PC 2002 devices, the e310 has average features with no surprises, apart from its tiny size. The processor is an ordinary 206 MHz with 32 MB RAM and the same for the ROM, but can take SD cards to increase its storage capacity.

Now, when we compare it with other Palm OS-based devices, it can only bring out some of the advantages of Pocket PCs. The MP3 player is integrated instead of optional; the device is for multitasking, so you can listen to music while you work, zap from one application to another without having to quit them first, etc. Screen resolution is 240 x 320 pixels on a longer diagonal than Palm OS organizers.

Its resolution is:

comparable to a Sony Clié; much higher than the over-pixelated Palm color screens.

And what's more, the e310 is no bigger, heavier or pricier than a top-range color Palm.

Little Niggles And Small Joys With The E310

The device has an average battery life. Toshiba claims it is about ten hours. In non-stop MP3 play, with "Medium" brightness and the sound set at 2, we found we could play music for 4 hours 24 minutes. Beyond this, the battery was still charged at 14%, but an error message warned that the charge level was too low to read the file in progress. In general, reckon on four to five hours of run time. A vital point to remember is never to play with fire: the e310 has no spare battery, so if you let the battery run down, you will lose all your data. This actually happened to us several times during the tests, because the holder does not protect the highly sensitive on/ off button, so the device regularly switched off inadvertently and we found ourselves having to reinstall all our applications, contacts, calendar, etc. - the sort of thing that always happens at the worst possible time.

Secondly, the e570 was the first Pocket PC 2002 with an interface fully customized by a system of tabs and icons, not unlike Palm. The e310 has this ingenious system too. This makes it much easier to handle, though it does mean you have to download extra applications for finding out the battery level, the background applications and how to shut them down easily at a glance - WISbar, GigaBar, TodaysInfo, etc. And by the way, while you are surfing sites for downloads, you might just as well add some work applications like ACDSee Mobile or games like Quake, Metalion, Doom 1 & 2, Turjah II, etc.