BIRDIESOnce an all-Palm OS shop, the
Maximum PC Lab now has four
editors who’ve made the switch
to Pocket PC—and HP’s decadent,
featurific iPaq 5555 proved to
be the deciding factor for more
than one fence-hopper. With a
user-replaceable battery, 400MHz
XScale CPU, and onboard Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth (that’s right, both ),
this iPaq can’t be beat for speed or
features. And did we mention that
the iPaq runs Windows Mobile 2003,
and comes with a fingerprint scanner
as well as a whopping 128MB of
RAM? It’s no wonder the 5555 is such
a Pied Piper for the Pocket PC platform.
$650, http://www.hp.comNonetheless: Palm’s Tungsten C has a
bigger battery, so you can use its built-in
Wi-Fi all day. The same can’t be said forPDA
Hewlett-Packard iPaq 5555
SOUNDCARD
Creative Labs Sound Blaster
Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
Once an all-Palm OS shop, the
Maximum PC Lab now has four
editors who’ve made the switch
to Pocket PC—and HP’s decadent,
featurific iPaq 5555 proved to
be the deciding factor for more
than one fence-hopper. With a
user-replaceable battery, 400MHz
XScale CPU, and onboard Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth (that’s right,
this iPaq can’t be beat for speed or
features. And did we mention that
the iPaq runs Windows Mobile 2003,
and comes with a fingerprint scanner
as well as a whopping 128MB of
RAM? It’s no wonder the 5555 is such
a Pied Piper for the Pocket PC platform.
$650, http://www.hp.comNonetheless
bigger battery, so you can use its built-in
Wi-Fi all day. The same can’t be said for
the iPaq.Hewlett-Packard iPaq 5555
If you plan on building an
Athlon XP system, there’s
only one sane chipset choice:
nVidia’s nForce2 Ultra 400. It’s
fast, stable, stuffed to the gills with features, and still offers the only
onboard audio worth a darn. Dual NIC support, a rock-solid driver
set, and dual-channel DDR support (dual-channel support that other
Athlon XP chipsets lack ) only seal the deal, and make the nForce2 an
untouchable mobo-bound monster. Considering that nVidia failed to
put Dolby Digital real-time encoding into the nForce3, the nForce
becomes the natural candidate for early entry into the chipset
hall of fame. Prices vary depending on motherboard costs,
http://www.nvidia.comUm, what about Athlon 64?: It’s no secret that we think the
Athlon 64 FX is a better processor than the Athlon XP, but we’re
not quite ready to name an 64 FX chipset as Gear of the Year. We
haven’t had time to properly torture-test the breed, and we expect
that not all contenders have yet reached market. Stay tuned.ATHLON XP
CORE LOGIC
nVidia
nForce2 Ultra 400