Asus Mypal A600 Views

• Wireless Products

The ASUS MyPal A600 computer based on the Pocket PC is the first offering from this manufacturer. The ASUS's experience in production of mobile equipment lets us hope that its first product won't be spoiled, as it often happens in small companies. A share of this company on the world market makes me think that the production volumes of the MyPal will be quite large and the delivery will be regular. As you know, ASUS is known for high-quality products offered at moderate prices - I believe the policy regarding the PDA will be the same, and the A600 will sport an advantageous price/quality ratio.

Our meeting with the head of the mobile division, a very interesting man who will go unnamed as per his personal preference, focused on discussing ASUS' MyPal A600. You may recall from our Day 2 Computex 2002 coverage, the ASUS MyPal A600 is an Xscale based PDA solution that combines long battery life, a 400MHz processor and PocketPC 2002 in a package only slightly larger than the Palm m515. The product actually ended up winning a Best Choice award for Mobile Products from the organizers of Computex and from what we saw they made the right decision: it looks like the MyPal A600 could be the iPaq of tomorrow.

The design process of the MyPal A600 was unique among PDAs. Rather than create size constraints and design a hardware system to fit in a predetermined package, ASUS began with the hardware and worked from the inside out. The process started with placement of the CPU and evolved from there, at each stage attempting to make the unit as compact and powerful as possible. As the final product shows, the results were impressive. The MyPal A600 measures 4.92 x 2.95 x 0.5 inches and weighs only 5.3oz, making it significantly smaller than the other PocketPC 2002 solutions we have seen with the exception of the impressive Toshiba e310 (a StrongARM solution).

ASUS also mentioned that according to the Microsoft PocketPC 2002 specifications, battery life in this test must be at least eight hours to be certified by Microsoft. As a result of this, many companies have little incentive to push the eight hour mark much. When designing the MyPal A600, ASUS was not concerned with only meeting the established specifications, but also satisfying the user's needs. This truly is a solution for the masses.