HP iPAQ 210

In this day of electronics convergence, our cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, etc., all compress down into one multi-purpose device that does everything but style our hair. This results in a compromised device, usually with a small screen and a battery that's constantly panting. Back in the old days, PDAs were mighty road warriors that replaced laptops on the road for some intrepid travelers. They had large, bright screens, ran complex applications, and some even possessed mighty batteries that outlasted converged devices.

But wait, those days are not gone forever. While companies like Sony, Fujitsu, and Dell bailed out of the stand-alone PDA market, HP produced a mighty successor to greats like their own iPAQ hx4700 and Dell's Axim X50v and Axim 51v models. Following HP's release of a “consumer” PDA late last fall in the QVGA iPAQ 110, they have now offered the much-anticipated iPAQ 200-series for sale.

The new iPAQ packs quite a punch with a 4” VGA screen and 16-bit color, 128MB (~35MB used by operating system) of Program Memory, 256MB (162.55MB usable) of Storage Memory, 24.71MB of File Store, all powered by the mighty 624MHz Marvell PXA310 CPU. It sports both SDHC and CF card slots, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, and a nice 2200mAh battery. What's not to love?