Taiwan computer maker Mitac has unveiled in Hong Kong what it claims is the world's lowest-priced personal digital assistant (PDA) based on Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system.
At HK$2,480, the new Mio 338 costs about half as much as the up-market Pocket PC hand-held models made by Hewlett-Packard and Casio.
Dickson Cheng, product manager at Mitac's local distributor, Gennett International, estimated that about 10,000 Mio 338 units would be sold in the Asia-Pacific by the end of this year.
The Mio 338, which became available in both Hong Kong and Taiwan this week, is produced by Mitac under its DigiWalker-series PDA range.
The new hand-held is powered by a 200-megahertz Intel XScale processor, with 32 megabytes of flash memory and 64MB of dynamic random access memory. It runs a traditional Chinese edition of Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 operating system.
It also features a 3.5-inch colour display and built-in voice recording and MP3 playback support.
The unit, which is powered by a rechargeable lithium battery, can be used continuously for more than eight hours on each charge. Only one-centimetre thick and weighing less than 120 grams, the Mio 338 is the thinnest and lightest Pocket PC PDA available in the market, according to Mr Cheng.