In what is an interesting first time foray into the crowded PDA market, Acer is hedging its bets by releasing both Palm- and Pocket PC-based PDAs. It's a curious gambit to be sure, and we're content to see which PDA branch blossoms while the other withers.

A seemingly new entrant to the PDA market, the Siemens SX45 is a Pocket PC PDA that may appear familiar to users or owners of the Cassiopeia range. That's because the SX45 is based on the Cassiopeia e-125 PDA.

Acer is hedging its bets by releasing both Palm and Pocket PC-based PDAs

The Toshiba e740 Pocket PC is the third PDA from Toshiba released in the past year, and is targeted at the business user. This does not mean its a bland PDA, as it is the fastest on the market thanks to its 400MHz Intel Xscale processor.

Back in February 2002 (PC Authority issue 51 page 42) we ran a comprehensive round up of the latest PDAs in the market, but its amazing what difference a few months make. Toshibas entry to the market, the e570, won the Quality Award, but was pipped at the post by the Palm m125, which won the value award with its extremely competitive price.

Microsoft has four key 'visions' for Pocket PC 2003 (PPC 2003): make it easier for manufacturers to innovate, improve the 'wireless experience', bring easy instant messaging to the PDA, and expand the 'media experience'.

The future, they say, is based on the Internet and mobile computing.

This is a game that pushes PC hardware to the limit, and puts so called ‘next-gen’ consoles to shame.

The iPAQ's evolution is almost complete. The first signs came with the H1940, a Pocket PC that finally managed to be good looking, tiny and powerful - and it even included Bluetooth. But the H4150, while looking rather similar, makes the H1940 look almost Stone Age, with HP squeezing WLAN into the package, upping the processor speed to 400MHz and improving the screen still further.

Purely because of its size, even the smallest PDA isn’t something you’re likely to feel comfortable holding to your ear as a phone for long periods of time. And, despite its slim curves and great physique, the Xda II is no exception.

Palm's primary considerations for the IIIc,s design brief was battery life, size and weight

A Vista-only release that's merely a port of an Xbox game. The charm's in the gameplay, not its Vista-centric nature.

For the best part of a decade PC sound boffins have been trying to convince us that we need to hook our desktops up to surround speakers to make the most of games and PC video.

The battle for position in the palm-sized PC market is set to explode in the coming year, and Compaq is determined to lead

Another epic installment of the GTA series, tragically hampered by a poor PC port

Dell has waited several years to release its own PDA, and now committed to Pocket PC, Dell's main weapon is aggressive pricing that's on the verge of insane.

The major difference with the Net MD MZ-N1 and previous MD players is that it features PC connectivity. The only way you could connect previous MiniDisc players to a PC was either with an optical digital output from your soundcard (and then manually record the audio signal on your player) or by purchasing an expensive accessory from Sony.

It's a sign of the times when Compaq's Aero 8000 runs Windows CE in a box bigger than a Sharp PC-A250 (reviewed issue 23, p86) running Windows 98. So what's the big idea? Windows CE uses no moving parts, while software in ROM means immediate start-up times, high reliability, and long battery life all highly desirable qualities in a portable.

Hitachi DZ-MV100E

The Creative PC-CAM 850 is a 2-megapixel digital camera geared to double up as a Webcam and a camcorder. Priced at a low $279, it hosts an impressive 16MB of built-in memory, writes to both MMC and SD card media and also has S-Video output.