LG Electronics - Phenom Express review

   Windows CE in a bigger package

   The problem with mobile computing devices is that their designers always have to make some sort of compromise. Laptop PCs offer plenty of functionality but suffer from short battery lives and are invariably quite bulky items. At the other end of the scale, palm PCs are highly portable and usually enjoy long battery life but are next to useless for any task more demanding than storing telephone numbers. Based on Microsoft's Windows CE Pro, the LG Phenom Express is one of a new breed of mobile computers which occupies the middle ground between these two extremes and, surprisingly, manages to offer the advantages of both with the failings of neither.

   The biggest single complaint most people have about handheld computers is that they always seem to have very poor keyboards which are useless for typing at any worthwhile speed. The Phenom, we are pleased to say, has a great keyboard. The keys are roughly 80 percent the size of those found on desktop PC and are tactile and laid out well enough to make typing at a reasonable pace effortless. The 256 colour 640 by 240 screen is large enough to be perfectly useable for most situations - the similarly designed HP Jornada offers a full 640 by 480 screen, but is considerably larger than the Phenom. At the rear of the machine you'll find a standard VGA port which allows you to plug a VGA monitor straight in without having to use any kind of adapter cable; doing so will allow you to display at 640 by 480. Also at the rear of the machine is a full-sized parallel printer port - most other devices of this type require you to use adapter cables to plug in printers and monitors. It's this sort of attention to detail which makes the Phenom stand out from the current crop of handhelds. Another example is the rechargeable backup battery; many other machines need you to replace the backup cell when it dies.

   Unfortunately main battery life is somewhat disappointing and fails to match the manufacturer's claim of 12 hours. We found that the device rarely survives more than five hours on a single charge. Another minor negative is that the Phenom does not support compact flash memory cards in its standard form, although a PCMCIA card adapter is available from both LG and Kingston Memory. A single PCMCIA slot is available along with the standard serial connector for hooking the machine up to a desktop PC. The system is based on a 100MHz Hitachi SH3 processor and comes as standard with 16MB of ROM and the same amount of RAM, which can be expanded to 32MB. A hugely useful feature is the integral 56Kbps modem that eliminates the need for a separate card and leaves the PCMCIA slot free for other things.

   For most people the Phenom would make a more than adequate substitute for a full blown laptop, as it's capable of handling the most common tasks such as word processing, e-mail, Web access and so on. Its chief competitors are the HP Jornada and the Sharp PV5000, the latter of which it beats easily, mainly thanks to its superior keyboard. It also stacks up favourably against the Jornada, primarily because it's smaller and lighter but offers very similar features - many people will understandably want the larger screen and won't mind the extra bulk, but for us the Phenom Express offers the best balance of portability and functionality.

   Verdict

   Certainly one of the best handheld computers on the market. Some people have raised concerns about the device's performance, but for the kind of work most people will use the Phenom for (i.e. word processing, etc.) this really is not an issue. For the money, you won't find a better feature set anywhere.