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Asus A626 3.5-inch PDA Windows Mobile 5.0, Wi-fi (802.11 B+g), Bluetooth 2.0 (edr), List Price: $286.99 Used From: $150.00 Average Rating:

Description

ASUS has launched the A626 ultra-slim PDA to answer the increasing demand of users who require a highly practical yet versatile PDA. This palm-sized marvel matches high quality with an impeccable standard of design and caters to the users expectations for personal handheld accessories.Exceptionally slim at only 1.57 cm, the ASUS A626 really stands out from most of the other PDAs on the market. The casing is made of stainless steel and the whole PDA is less than 158g in weight. The 3.5" anti-glare touch screen completes the outlook of the A626 and provides the feeling of a solid and high quality luxury accessory.

A great productivity companion that will keep you connected to email and the Internet, the ultra-slim, palm-sized ASUS A626 PDA stands out from other PDAs on the market. Weighing just over 5.5 ounces, it features a brightly colorful 3.5-inch anti-glare touchscreen LCD and durable, fashionable stainless steel case. In situations where utilizing a notebook is more hassle than convenience, the A626 will help you stay productive and connected with its Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system and 54g Wi-Fi LAN (802.11b/g) for downloading email and surfing the Web in both corporate and coffeehouse environments. With ASUS's user-friendly Remote Presenter application, the A626 can also be easily utilized to remotely link and control presentations on a computer via Bluetooth. And since all data is stored in flash memory (128 MB ROM with 64 MB SDRAM), your most important data remains saved even if all battery power in the handheld has drained away. You can expand the A626's memory vie optional Secure Digital (SD) memory cards. The Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC operating system includes the Microsoft Office Mobile suite, which features Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and PowerPoint Mobile. Meanwhile, the File Explorer application makes it easy to browse the files. It also supports Windows Media playback right out of the box. With Windows Media Player, you can play streaming and downloaded video and audio content in a variety of formats. You can also keep favorite tunes loaded on a memory card and listen to your music wherever you roam. With its front-mounted speakers, it plays a variety of popular video and audio formats (MP3, WMA). With the integrated Bluetooth technology, you can connect wirelessly to peripherals such as your cell phone and make cable clutter a thing of the past. Bluetooth 2.0+EDR is up to three times faster than its predecessors, offering a maximum data rate of 3Mbps, and is also backwards-compatible with Bluetooth 1.x devices. Specifications 312 MHz Marvell XScale processor 3.5-inch TFT LCD touchscreen with 65k colors, 240 x 320-pixel resolution (QVGA) 128 MB Flash ROM and 64 MB SDRAM 3.5mm earphone jack Integrated microphone and speakers Full duplex recording and playback 1200 mAh removable/rechargeable battery Dimensions: 2.8 x 0.6 x 4.6 inches Weight: 5.57 ounces What's in the Box ASUS A626, rechargeable battery, AC adapter/charger, carrying case, mini-USB cable, CD with software and drivers, printed user guide

Features

• CPU - Marvell XScale processor, 312MHz
• Operating System - Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 ( Pocket PC )
• Display - 3.5" Brilliant TFT LCD 65k full-colors, 16-bit display QVGA, 240x320 resolution with touch screen (anti-glare)
• Memory - 128MB Flash ROM and 64 MB SDRAM
• Expansion Slot - 1 x SD slot (SDIO/SD/MMC ) up to 4GB

Reviews

When I first bought this about 16 months ago, I loved it... except that it couldn't connect to the internet from my apartment... couldn't synch with my laptop nor could it update when I was able to connect to the internet... but since this was my first PDA, I was happy that it would play movies and entertain me during long trips. When I started learning that the product was suppose to be able to do some of the things that I had initially bought it to do and didn't... well, now my trust factor of all things ASUS have dropped off. I noticed that Dell doesn't offer the item any longer and ASUS doesn't support (nor do they seem to acknowledge it's existence). How wonderful for my naievete... that I didn't persue more of the features... but now it's almost dead in the water except that I can still play solitare and bubble breaker... and when the moon is just right, work the excel program. :) I love life.

I've used a number of PDAs since the late 1990s - HP 620 (as I recall), REX, iPaq, Axim X30 and A626. How I'd like to see the REX come back on to the market! Anyway, all of these seem to have offered increasing functionality, until the A626. I bought it because my Axim X30 developed a screen fault after several years of use, and I thought that was the begining of the end - I'd had to replace a previous Axim because of another failure. I have to, or think I have to, cart around a PDA because of work/life divisions, keeping common calendar/contacts functions on the PDA. This worked fine on all models until A626. But A626 took much longer to start cold than e.g. Axim -literally several minutes vs than a second or two on Axim - pretty frustrating when I was just looking up a contact, or recording an appointment at the dentist's office. Whether this was due to A626 hardware, or the bloated Windows Mobile software (vs. CE) that came with it, I cannot say. Within the past month, Calendar and Contacts functions became inoperable on the A626. These seem to have been corrected by a hard reset - but what a hassle - my labor costs in dealing with deficiencies of A626 now easily exceed the cost of the device itself.

After many years, and being a sold-on-pda man who doesn't like to have all his eggs in one basket, I needed to upgrade. This was the one I chose after much research and I do not regret it. It's an upgraded to WM 6 model, built almost as solid as any dedicated high end pda such as Socket Mobile, (and a third the price) and I have no complaints. The audio is a little weak, but I had wanted to get a Sanza Fuze anyway to cover that base. Highly recommended.

I bought this product about 6 mos. ago and its been good so far but the only major problem is the battery. On wifi the battery lasts for maybe and hour and a half. With no wifi on, maybe 3-4 hours. The RAM is pretty low so running multiple applications isn't the best idea. It can;t play most pocket pc 3-D games, I just got a black screen when ever I anted to play a game I didn't download from the marketplace. All in all, it's not too bad, but I recommend download a pocket pc program that plays any video file and download a music player, the windows media player it comes with is pretty bad.

The WiFi of this machine is poor at best. The browser is not ful featured. It does not like to run active sync. That occasionally works on wired connections.