Compaq provides the muscle entry into the PDA market. The iPaq H3650 Pocket PC is powered by a 206 MHz Intel processor and comes with 32 megabytes of memory, more than double what comes standard on similar Palm units.
The extra power makes the iPaq more of a small PC than a PDA. It can run multimedia applications, including a voice recorder, a MP3 player and a movie viewer.
This sleek, silver handheld also runs slimmed-down editions of Word and Excel along with programs such as Windows Media Player. The Windows Pocket PC operating system is an improved version of the much-criticised early versions of Windows CE.
Unlike some other PDAs, you do not have to learn a special language for inputting text. The iPaq gives you a choice between a standard keyboard and character recognition. The auto-fill function also suggests words as you input them.
The iPaq has a 12-bit colour screen providing 4,096 colours, and brightness is automatically adjusted to compensate for the amount of ambient light. The screen is clear and easy to read.
The unit connects to your PC via USB and takes a full range of add-ons, which wrap around the metal housing of the iPaq like a jacket.
