Reviews
Toshiba
e400 Series
Voted most improved, the new low-end Toshiba becomes a contender
Hey,
another low-end Pocket PC from Toshiba. Didn't we just review
the e330 and the e355? We only rated the latter a "C+" because
it was a rehash and a little short on innovation. The e300 Series
of Pocket PCs was initially seen as a great value but buyers quickly
began asking for a transflective display instead of the reflective
LCD with its annoying sidelight. And compared to the cool new
HP iPAQs the 300 Series just didn't look very exciting. It was
time for complete overhaul. Hence the e400 Series.
The new model definitely looks good, a lot better than the old
one. The angular plain-silver case of the 300 Series has been
replaced with a nicely crafted blue metallic housing with curves
in all the right places. The screen is now centered and no longer
off to one side. All buttons are combined into a rectangular silvery
control pad with a navigation disc surrounded by the standard
four application buttons. There is a side rocker, a remnant of
the Palm-size PC days long gone from most other Pocket PCs. We're
not sure why it's there but it can be useful. Other design cues
include black plastic side and bottom inserts and a high-gloss
black plastic cap like you find on iPAQs. The e400 is definitely
a nice looking device. It's also very compact-4.9 by 3 inches-and
even thinner than before.
Thin is always good but in this case it has a price. Power jack
and SD card slot didn't quite fit and are sort of grafted on to
the sleek underside of the e400. Excessive slenderness also meant
sacrificing a real stylus in favor of a mini stylus that extends
a bit when you pull it out of its housing. There is also no lid
to keep the screen from getting scratched. That's bad news as
Toshiba's beancounters also nixed including a case. You don't
even get a cheap imitation leather glove.
Things
look better in the engine processor department where Toshiba picked
one of Intel's latest chips, the small-footprint PXA261 that comes
with its own 16MB of Flash. The on-chip Flash is used as program
memory, which means you get more of the built-in 64MB of SDRAM
for storage. The e400 also has an additional 32MB of internal
storage that can be used as a Flash ROM disk. This being a low-end
offering, Toshiba chose to go with a 300MHz version of the CPU
so as not to encroach on the performance territory of the high-end
e800 Series. Fine with us. The e400 feels quick enough.
That's about it for hardware innovation. The display is a standard
3.5-inch transflective LCD with 240 x 320 pixels. No fancy VGA
screen here. No Wi-Fi or Bluetooth either. For that you need to
buy a 802.11b or Bluetooth card and pop it into the e400's SD
slot.
Much to Toshiba's credit they didn't send their new Pocket PC
out into the world and onto the shelves as just a pretty face.
Instead, they thought of what people might use the e400 for and
concluded that it needed some extra audio and voice software-hands-free
voice commands and text-to-speech to be exact. Text to Speech
for Pocket PC and Toshiba Voice Command come on a companion CD-ROM.
Text to Speech reads text files up to 32kb in size and does it
well enough to try out for onboard computer voice on the Starship
Enterprise. Text to Speech knows how to properly pronounce words
and even puts a human inflection on them. Great for listening
to e-books. Text to Voice also reads emails and such. Toshiba
Voice Command works with Text to Speech. Push the record button,
wait for Voice Command's ready tone, then state your wish. Voice
Command has about 300 commands covering most of the Pocket PC
software. You can also define text blocks and use it to start
additional programs. We liked the voice apps but not the e400's
tinny little speaker. Also included is ArcSoft PhotoBase, a photo
viewer/manager/editor designed for mobile platforms. If nothing
else, PhotoBase is a far better way to view pictures than Pocket
Internet Explorer.
The Toshiba e400 Series is much better than its predecessor. In
fact, it may be good enough to keep you from buying an iPAQ.
-Kirk Linsky
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