CNET editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 12/15/2002
- Updated on: 12/17/2002
- Released on: 11/01/2002
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 The ViewSonic is not the smallest Pocket PC available. |
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The V35 has a rather standard design for a Pocket PC. Buttons for notes, contacts, calendar, and tasks gird the five-way navigation control below the screen, and the thumb region on the device's left side hosts the reset button, a scroll wheel, and the record button. Along the top of the V35, you'll find the IR port, a slot for Secure Digital (SD)/MultiMedia Memory card (MMC) media, a power button, and a stylus silo. The headphone jack is on the unit's right side, somewhat toward the bottom.
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| But it is smaller than most and slimmer, too. | On the down low: The V35's low-profile cradle slips easily into a travel bag or a briefcase. |
ViewSonic includes a leatherette slipcover to protect the unit, as well as a stable, black docking cradle. We liked the cradle's design--it's lightweight, rounded, and low in profile, making it easy to slip into a bag for travel. Also, there's an AC connector on the bottom of the V35 if you want to recharge the device without syncing.The V35's hardware features come in somewhere near the middle of the Pocket PC pack. A 300MHz Intel XScale processor is at the heart of the unit. With 36.45MB of available RAM, the V35 has slightly more memory than most 300MHz Pocket PCs but considerably less than the 64MB found in most high-end models. At any rate, you can easily augment your storage space with SD/MMC media. The device's display is the standard 3.5-inch, 65,000-color, transflective TFT.
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 Take your thumb for a scroll on the unit's jog dial. |
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Some useful utilities are written into the ViewSonic's control panel. A backup app lets you copy your contacts, calendar info, and other important data to removable media. (Admittedly, though, most Pocket PCs have a similar feature.) The V35 also takes advantage of the XScale processor's scalability by providing a power-switching utility, with which you can toggle between high-performance and power-saving CPU modes.
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| Different power settings can potentially lengthen battery life. | Peep at some pics with Westtek's included viewer application. |
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 Its good side: The ViewSonic's bright screen is one of its best features. |
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If you like a high-contrast, rich screen, the V35 won't disappoint. The display produced accurate colors and deep blacks and was easy to view in both bright and dim settings. If we had to find a fault with the screen at all, it was with the slight glare on its surface, but this is a common problem with PDAs. The transflective TFT offers the Pocket PC standards of 16-bit (65,000) colors and a 240x320-pixel resolution.
Unfortunately, the V35's battery is its conspicuous weak spot. The 900mAh rechargeable lithium-ion cell contributes to the unit's small weight but also to its shorter-than-average period between charges. Playing MP3s with the backlight at 50 percent, the ViewSonic crapped out after just 2 hours, 46 minutes. By contrast, the Toshiba e335 lasted 4 hours, 16 minutes, while the Dell Axim hung on for a marathon 6 hours, 22 minutes. Unfortunately, when we switched the V35's processor to its low-performance, energy-saving mode, there was no appreciable change in battery life.
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