All-around good performer for price

Author's Rating:

Pros: Slim, budget-priced, good battery life for size, screen bigger than Dell Axim

Cons: Buttons not responsive, 4-way swivel button not accurate, no compact flash slot

The Bottom Line: 
Slim profile, solid-performer with 300 MHz processor, enough memory, good enough screen. Buy it if you see it at a good price vs. its competition.

Author's Review
PREVIOUS HISTORY WITH PDAs:
I've owned the Toshiba 330 for 5 months. Previously, I have owned a Sony Clie (PalmOS, 2001), Palm IIIc (first color Palm, 2000), and Palm III (1999). I consider myself a fairly hard-core PDA user, but I've never felt the need for high-end features like WiFi, Bluetooth, integrated cameras, or integrate cell phones. And because I'm proficient with Grafitti, I despise PDAs with integrated keyboards.

COMPETITION:
When it came time to shop for another PDA, I had several choices. PocketPC: Toshiba e330/e335, HP H1910, Dell Axim 300/400 Mhz, and Viewsonic V35. Palm: an MP3-capable Sony Clie (there are so many of them, who can keep tabs on the model numbers?) or Palm Tungsten T. Despite the greater complexity and slower speed, I decided to go with the extra versatility of a PocketPC.

Even though I've owned 3 PalmOS PDAs and love their ease of use, I was annoyed by PalmOS's inability to directly sync file types like PDF, MP3s, and MS Office files. In PalmOS (even version 5.x), you need separate apps to convert each of these file types into PalmOS-readable types. Plus, PalmOS has no file manager! Each app manages its own files. This must be one of the greatest disadvantages of PalmOS.

For these reasons, I went with PocketPC instead of PalmOS this time around. The Dell Axim is too bulky. The HP 1910 is very slim, but its processor is a little down on power; and it has a non-standard headphone jack--very annoying. The Viewsonic doesn't have a track record yet. So I settled on the Toshiba--it's slim (though fairly tall vs. the HP 1910), has a 300 MHz processor (fast enough), and 64 MB of memory (more than the HP).

HARDWARE:
I like the e330, though I don't love it. The screen is decent, but dim outdoor (the e350 is much better). And there is all your standard PocketPC buttons in the front; a thumbwheel and record button on the left side; and the on/off button, IR port, and SD port on top. The battery is non-removable, but I can live with that. The only real hardware complaint that I have is that the buttons are not very responsive. When you press the buttons, they click but sometimes do nothing; you have to press a couple times sometimes. Plus, the 4-way swivel button is not accurate and sometimes over-sensitive. These issues with the buttons are tolerable but make it difficult to play games.

The battery life is above-average for a PocketPC, especially one this slim. I'm able to get more than 4 hours of MP3 play from the e330 with the screen dim. The 300 Mhz processor is adequate for multitasking while playing MP3s. I don't play videos on the e330, so I can't judge its performance.

SOFTWARE:
PocketPC (2002 on the e330, 2003 on the e350) is more powerful than PalmOS, as I expected, and more complicated. But any person who is familiar with Windows will get the hang of it within a few days. I was just as comfortable with PocketPC after one week of use as I was with PalmOS after 3 years. And (thank the heavens!) there is a file manager where you can organize your files just like in Windows.

Yes, ActiveSync (despite being on Version 3.7) is still buggy and quirky now and again, but no more often than an app crashing in Windows. Yes, there are more layers of dialog boxes to click through to do the same things as in PalmOS (including in the basic Task/Calendar/Notes/Contacts apps).

Ironically, the new PalmOS (5.2.1) phases out the classic Grafitti, which I am proficient at. Now, it's only available on PocketPC as "Block Recognizer." I think Grafitti was more efficient than the standard PocketPC alphabet, so I'm sticking with it.

Most problematic is the PocketPC's synchronization with Outlook (I use Outlook 2002). Because Outlook is such full-featured program, the PocketPC Task/Calendar/Notes/Contacts apps do not sync all the available data you can enter into Outlook. (Of course, this gripe is true with sync'ing between PalmOS and Outlook also using Chapura PocketMirror.) The most glaring example is Notes. In Outlook, you're able to categorize your notes; but in PocketPC, you're NOT able to categorize them. Instead, in PocketPC, you must create folders to store your Notes. The result is that Outlook has one method of categorization for your Notes that doesn't translate to PocketPC, and you're never able to remember where you put your Notes (I keep more than 100 Notes in the PocketPC). On the up side, each note you create is a separate file in the PocketPC, so you can manipulate them like normal files. In PalmOS, Memos are stored as one big file.

The PocketPC Media Player is lame, being that it only knows how to play MP3s and Windows-format video, not avi, mpg, or divx. But that's no big deal, since you're able to get any number of competent freeware/shareware PocketPC video players. This is true also of almost any other application you can think of...there is no longer a significant deficit of PocketPC apps vs. PalmOS apps.