Psion Series 5 PDA: Gee-Whiz Power and Style

Multitasking personal digital assistant has muscle as well as elegance.

Michael S. Lasky, PC World

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Appearances can be deceiving. Psion%squots next-generation personal digital assistant, the 32-bit Series 5, is a light and debonair Fred Astaire on the outside and a muscular and multifaceted Arnold Schwarzenegger on the inside. This 6.75-by-3.56-inch, 12.5-ounce pocket PC is less than an inch thick, but its versatility and sheer computing power all but burst out of the sleek case.

Like all palmtops, the Series 5 has a clamshell design, but the 640-by-240-pixel VGA screen embedded in the lid is great for viewing full-page widths.

Up to now, Psion devices accepted only keyboard input. The Series 5 adds a well-proportioned stylus for its highly legible touch-screen display. Icons for launching applications line the bottom of the screen, and customization tools line the sides, all activated by a light fingertap.

The device ships with a word processor, spreadsheet, drawing program, personal information manager, spelling checker, alarm clock, and, for those quick but power-draining voice memos, a digital sound recorder that works even when the unit is closed. It lists for $599 with 4MB of RAM; $699 with 8MB of RAM.

Psion%squots previous hand-held PC, the Series 3c, was a PC World Best Buy in May. Based on my experiences with a preproduction Series 5 model, I can safely say that Psion has upped the ante for PDA power and convenience.

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