Asus announces PDA with VGA LCD, Wi-Fi

Asus has formally launched its Wi-Fi PocketPC, the MyPal A730, in its home state of Taiwan, the company said today.

The successor to the company's A716 wireless PDA, the A730 incorporates Intel's latest XScale processor technology, a 520MHz PXA270, and runs Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition.

The A730, which was first shown last March at the CeBIT show and, in June, at Computex, sports a 3.7in 480 x 640 65,536-colour LCD. It contains 64MB of RAM (48MB of which is user-accessible) and 64MB of Flash ROM. The PDA offers both a CompactFlash and an SDIO/MMC slot for expansion.

The handheld also sports a 1.3 megapixel digital camera.

For wireless communications, the A730 offers the usual infra-red, plus Bluetooth and 802.11b. Asus reckons the 1100mAh battery delivers enough power for nine hours' operation, but it's not clear whether that's with the Wi-Fi radio turned on or off. By contrast, the Bluetooth-only MyPal A620BT's 1300mAh battery yields 19 hours' uptime, suggesting the A730's figure is with WLAN enabled.

The unit weighs 170g and measures 11.8 x 7.3 x 1.7cm.

Despite its early outings and today's launch, the A730 will not go on sale in Taiwan until September, Asus said. That suggests - though the company has not yet confirmed - Q4 availability in Western territories. ®

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