Toshiba E750 Windows Mobile 2003 Bluetooth review

The Toshiba E750 with Windows Mobile 2003 sports a sleek elegant design, power and memory - with a choice of wireless: Bluetooth or wi-fi. The new version of this PDA includes an updated CPU and a new OS version.

Toshiba put a Intel PXA255 running at 400MHz and 64MB RAM together, plus 32MB non-volatile NAND memory available to the user to be used as a permanent storage. Files in this area will not be erased in case of a power failure or reset.

It's a super lite PDA, only 191g (Bluetooth edition) or 196.5g (wi-fi edition). The dimensions are 80 x 125 x 16 mm (W x L x H), making it very well designed for pockets. The very clear 3.8" screen (240 x 320) is a delight to look at. And much more so when ClearType is enabled, which gives a nice smooth finish - better than the ClearType I've seen before in other devices with the old OS version.

The Toshiba E750 comes with two memory slots for additional memory or peripherals. A CF type II slot is available, and a SD/MMC is there too.

Users have a choice (outside U.S. that is) of buying it with Bluetooth or wi-fi. In my case the review unit had Bluetooth. But since SD IO wi-fi cards are almost here, it is just a matter of inserting a card and have a multi wireless device . Interesting enough, the only thing I struggled about this Pocket PC is in the Bluetooth area. Once the user searches for devices and services it's necessary to select one, and only one, that will be used for the next connection. All application will open "Bluetooth card", regardless of type of connection. The user has to be sure of what's the last connection registered. If an application looks for DUN (dial up) but the current registered port is LAP (LAN Access), then that's what the device will connect to (or try). My device went in a loop trying to start wireless ActiveSync while I had the DUN select instead of Serial Port. So, be warned!

Another problem I found with Bluetooth is the range. It seems that I couldn't find my desktop or my LAN Access point from the lounge, in the same location where I usually sit and connect using my other Pocket PC. Only when I walked half way between rooms the E750 found the other devices. The cool stuff is that Toshiba put in a couple of FTP utilities making it very easy to copy files from and to the E750 using wireless, and a Bluetooth Chat application (couldn't test this one, since I didn't have another unit to chat to)...


Applications, including a Bluetooth chat and Bluetooth FTP client


Bluetooth FTP client

The built-in software is the Microsoft Pocket PC 2003 Premium, including Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, Pocket Internet Explorer Pocket Outlook Inbox, Windows Media Player 9, ActiveSync 3.7 and Microsoft Outlook 2002. There is a few other programs, including a backup utility and an application launcher called Home.


Home, application launcher


The backup utility

Unlike other Pocket PC models, the power adapter can be connected directly to the bottom of the unit, without the need of a special adapter. Very handy while travelling (it seems I lost the adapter for my iPaq so I'm trouble having to carry the cradle for that Pocket PC).

How does it perform on a benchmark against other machines? I've used Spb Benchmark to collect performance information, and if you click in the chart you can have access to our Performance Centre, with other Pocket PC reviews and charts:


Performance comparison

An interesting thing is the Control Panel aplet that allows users to control the XScale processor speed. Users can manually set the speed by choosing 100, 200 or 400Mhz options.


Memory settings

The Pocket Internet Explorer is another champion. As you can see below the new version supports CSS, which was something I really missed in previous versions. The fonts look very smooth and easy to read, with pages loading fast. For the record I was doing these tests while connected to a Bluetake BT300 LAN Access Point.


Pocket Internet Explorer 2003 now supports CSS

I recommend this device, but would advise caution for Bluetooth users. Toshiba is the top mobile computing device maker in the world, with a personal computer line exclusively made of laptops, and they've used this experience in making a fine Pocket PC device in terms of design and resources .