Toshiba Portege G900 review

Toshiba's Portégé G900 (£405 inc. VAT) marks a return to the handheld market for the electronics giant, and stands out from rivals by virtue of its excellent 3-inch touchscreen display.

It's the first Pocket PC we've seen of this size to feature an 800 x 480-pixel resolution, and the results were stunning. Images were pin-sharp, and documents could be viewed without having to scroll from side to side.

Keyboard action

Slide the QWERTY keyboard out and the screen automatically switches to a landscape orientation. With the high resolution there's plenty of space for viewing your documents, and the keyboard is a pleasure to use.

Each key has a raised centre, making it easy to hit the right one when you're typing at speed. Commonly used punctuation marks such as commas and apostrophes are easily accessed, and numbers are highlighted in green.

Build quality impressed, and it's a sturdy device that could be used everyday without problems. The sliding mechanism is robust and solid to the touch.

Windows Mobile 6.0 is pre-installed, offering a host of useful features. Among other things, it boasts an office suite, letting you edit and create Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. There's also an easy-to-use email wizard, so you can set up your email accounts in no time.

The G900 supports push email, so you can send and receive emails almost instantly. You'll be able to use the VGA camera on the front for video calls and, because it's a 3G/HSDPA handset, browsing the internet and downloading files was also a rapid experience.

A built-in Wi-Fi adapter lets you connect to wireless networks and the internet. A Bluetooth adapter is also integrated. Performance was reasonable, thanks to a Intel 520MHz PXA270 processor. However, we still found it slowed down slightly when running multiple applications. The 30MB of memory for your files is small, but you can expand it using Micro-SD cards.

Unlike most handheld devices, security features are also in place, with a biometric fingerprint scanner behind the display. The extra security is welcome, as we found it slightly quicker than entering a password.

In addition to corporate features, you'll also find some more consumer-friendly additions, such as a 2-megapixel camera. The quality of photographs was no better than average, but images looked great on the large display.

It's not the smallest of devices, but the Portégé G900 makes an excellent corporate tool. The display is one of the best we've seen on a Pocket PC, and the keyboard is impressive.