A great second-hand pickup now..

Author's Rating:

Pros: Appearance, price, size, performance

Cons: Activesync drops out, can't upgrade to PPC2003

The Bottom Line: 
Buy it if you don't need all the wireless options or PPC 2003, but want a compact PocketPC that performs well.

Author's Review
This is my second PDA. The first I owned was a second-hand Compaq Aero 2130 - running on Windows CE 2.1 originally, then with the 'almost impossible to find' PocketPC upgrade, which remains one of my most prized finds of all time. I shall have it stuffed and mounted above my mantle piece.

The Aero was big, slow, clunky, with low memory, battery life was a shocker, dim display and audio output was in MONO - but I still liked the damn thing, because it gave me a taste for what was possible in a computer the size of your hand.

So to 'upgrade' to the Toshiba E330 was very exciting. I will try to be as objective about the machine as possible - as far as I can tell discussion on PDAs seems to be a far less safe topic than say religion or politics. I like both Palms and PocketPCs, and don't really care about which OS would be used in heaven, or how one Operating System caused an individual's life to turn to ruins and made their crops fail.

The unit itself looks great in it's aluminium casing. It feels solid when used in your hand, and is a good weight. It feels well made. It looks good in it's cradle too, which is nicely solid, and simple in design. The only disappointment in the physical design is the 4-way button, which seems to have a mind of it's own in determining which direction it should go.

The display is excellent. Bright and colourful, and works well in all situations. No 'auto' backlight function, but I'm not sure it's necessary. There are 4 brightness settings, and the backlight can be turned off for outdoor use.

Battery life is also excellent (unless you've got it set on the brightest backlight setting) - PocketPCs aren't designed to go weeks without recharging, so you'll want to keep it sync'ed to your computer and on charge when it's not being used. More than once I've lost everything because I've ignored the 'battery very low' messages. The battery still loses charge on when the unit is switched off, but you'd expect that - it still has to remind you of appointments and tasks, and check for incoming IR signals - can't do that without drawing some power.

As an MP3 player, you can't go wrong - playback quality is great through the standard 3.5" headphone socket.

The inbuilt speaker is clear, perhaps a little loud even on the softest setting, but that's a minor thought. The inbuilt mic is very responsive, and the layout of the record button next to the rocker switch makes this machine useful for a straight dictaphone replacement.

For straight organiser functions, it works perfectly well. The usual cast of Calendar, To-Do list, Outlook mail reader, contacts and Note-taker are there. Direct syncing with Outlook is the biggest plus, probably a negative if you were using different software on your desktop PC. I find myself making most appointments and taks on the desktop, then just sync them with the E330. Input options on the PDA are fine, choice of 3 input methods, of which I still find the mini-keyboard the easiest. (To avoid the rery conmon scenavio of mv text being dg!?cc_ ted)

Activesync is a solid piece of software, probably one area that PocketPCs have had some ground to catch up to Palm in the past. I think though there is something wrong with the USB connection with the E330. It just drops out far too regularly for my liking, frustrating when you are transferring large files (like MP3s, for example)

The SD/MMC slot is potentially a bit of a negative - it works fine with most cards (forget most OEM types!) , but does limit your add-on options. Want to give your PDA wireless options to connect to your network? Probably best to go with another PDA, with wireless connectivity built-in, or a PDA with a CF port for all kinds of wonderful add-ons. If not, then it really won't affect you.

Toshiba's support is also disappointing. I thought Compaq (at the time, I know they are now HP) was bad - they virtually erased all knowledge of the Aero the second it was discontinued, and from that point their technical support was non-existent. Toshiba follows the same logic, refusing to provide any real support, or to release OS upgrades to PocketPC 2003 for this machine, seemingly for no other reason than they want users to upgrade to a higher model. Risky, very Risky - hands up who buys the same brand of computer every time they upgrade? Who wants to be told they bought the wrong machine by the MANUFACTURER??! Okay enough - I warned you this can become a heated discussion. :)

The X-scale processor is fast enough to handle any game or application I care to throw at it, and the built-in software is very useable and useful. 64mb memory is enough to have all my applications, but as I like having a lot of free space I store all prg data on the SD card where possible.

For what I use my E330 for (offline email & web-browsing (yay for Avantgo) , personal organiser, reading ebooks, MP3 playback and playing the odd game) the machine works perfectly well, and I have no complaint other than the unreliable USB connection (IR connection actually works better).. I believe it to be a great purchase for the money, especially now.