1. Packed PDA

A real looker: the most interesting feature about the Mypal A730 is without a doubt its brilliant 3.7" VGA display

The days when a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) only functioned as a mobile electronic calendar are long gone. In the meantime, the availability of powerful, energy-saving CPUs and the option of expanding devices with additional memory in the form of SD or CF memory cards has turned the PDA into a multifunctional talent. Whether as a mobile MP3 player, a photo display unit for your digital snapshots or a navigation system - a pocket PC is always the right accessory.

With the Mypal A730, slated for release in stores starting in September for USD 500/450€, Asus takes the gadget a step further towards "digital convergence". It's the first PDA to feature a built-in 1.3 megapixel digital camera. The device also sports a 3.7" TFT screen that works with 480x640 pixel VGA resolution. For processing power, Asus uses Intel's newest Xscale CPU from the PXA27X series: the Intel PXA270. It supports a maximum clock rate of 520 MHz. We say "maximum" because the PXA27X series now brings the energy-saving technology SpeedStep , familiar to laptop owners, to the PDA processor. In addition, these new processors can now also deal with MMX commands, which should make it easier to port and develop multimedia applications for the PDA. And since by now nearly everything at Intel falls into the "wireless" category, the two new technologies have been dubbed "Wireless SpeedStep" and "Wireless MMX".

We managed to get our hands on an engineering sample of the Mypal A730 for a sneak preview.