Psion's Big Upgrade

Dick Pountain

Psion's new Series 5 hand-held computer is well positioned to compete against the armada of Windows CE-compatible computers on the market. It uses Cirrus Logic's CL-PS7110, a powerful processor that integrates a 32-bit ARM 7100 RISC core, 16 KB of cache, an MMU, LCD control, a DRAM interface, a UART, and an infrared interface all on a single chip. With 8 MB of RAM and 6 MB of applications in ROM, the Series 5 is much more powerful than its Series 3 predecessors. It even lets you store up to 30 minutes of speech and embed voice notes into any document.

A major strength of the Series 5 is its slick case design, which is based on a slide-out keyboard with keys that are large enough to touch-type on. Opening the case causes the keyboard to slide forward and the screen to rest against the sloping battery compartment, making the device sit stably on a flat surface.

In addition to a spelling checker, database, spreadsheet, diary, sketchpad, communications program, and an enhanced word processor, the package comes with PsiWin 2.0, a Windows 95 program that extends Windows Explorer to make the Series 5 visible as an extra drive on your PC. When you drag a file from the Series 5 to the PC, the program will automatically convert the file during copying to the corresponding Windows format.

On the downside, the optional e-mail and Web-browser programs are not yet ready, and Series 3 binary programs will not run on the Series 5. However, applications written in Psion's OPL language, except those that use POKEs to access the hardware directly, should recompile without problems.

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Where to Find

Series 5 hand-held computer..................£440 (4-MB)


.............................................£500 (8-MB)

Psion U.K. plc
London, U.K.
Phone:    +44 990 143 050
E-mail:   
info@psion.com

Internet: 
http://www.psion.com

Enter 1026 on Inquiry Card.

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Psion Series 5 Hand-Held

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