Refine search for Mobile Phones

  Leave a comment      Email TrustedReviews Newsletters

Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge

PalmSource has been steadily licensing its operating system to third parties for a while. PalmOne is probably the best known of the licensees, but there are others, including Tapwave, whose Zodiac has been available in the USA for the best part of a year. Though it has cooked up a storm in terms of positive press reviews stateside, it has taken until now for a European launch to take place.

I got hold of one of the first units to hit the UK and though pricing is not yet finalised or distribution deals signed on the dotted line, UK high street availability looks set.

I actually received a Zodiac 2, which differs from the original Zodiac in having 128MB of internal memory as opposed to 32MB and a slightly different casing colour. Yes, that was 128MB of memory, the most I’ve come across on a Palm OS device by some margin. Even Sony never matched this when it was distributing Cliés in the UK. 12MB is reserved for system use (on both incarnations of the Zodiac), so our review unit had 116MB available to the user. There are two SD card slots, one of which has SDIO support so you can expand on the memory and add hardware extras – a WiFi card to supplement the built in Bluetooth is expected ‘soon’.

Think Palm PDA and you may think about the built in applications: Address, Date Book, Memo Pad, and so on. Running as it does Palm OS 5.2T (the T stands for Tapwave), these are present on the Zodiac 2, but its primary aim is to be a Mobile Entertainment Console.

Hold the beautifully designed anodised aluminium deep grey hardware in the hand so that its screen is in landscape format, and on the right of the screen sit four action buttons. On the left you’ll find a 360-degree analogue controller, while the top left and right edges provide two ‘trigger’ buttons. It’s definitely a control array made for gamers.

Tapwave has placed its own MP3 player and photo viewer on ROM, and for user installation provides the Kinoma video player and Palm Reader among its software extras. Those wanting to use the Zodiac for serious stuff should note that the word processor WordSmith is provided – though only a 50-use limited version. PC Desktop software is also included, and Outlook synchronisation is provided by the Palm standby Chapura PocketMirror. There is no synchronisation software for Mac users.

I suspect the Bluetooth provision is more for multiplayer gaming than for communication. There is no email software, though a Web browser and SMS software are present for self-installation, and there is direct support for only three Bluetooth phones.

The Zodiac 2 has two processors. The main Motorola Arm9 processor is supplemented by one devoted to graphics processing. ATI’s Imageon 4200 has its own 8MB of memory to help it speed along.

There are stereo speakers one on each side of the screen. Output can be sent to a headset via a 3.5mm jack from the Yamaha audio processor. The screen itself is very nice, with a high quality 16bit colour display. The screen is touch sensitive, and the stylus lives in a hollow at the back of the casing. I managed to mislay mine twice within a week, which may not have happened if the Zodiac 2 were provided with a protective case.

Tapwave has devised its own user interface, rather nicely done so that it groups similar applications together on a ‘radial menu’. There is a centre icon and eight others connected to it by graphical ‘spokes’. You can customise the applications on the menu as well as the colour scheme used. It’s easy enough to see everything on the ROM and either SD card with a single tap.

Palm Applications run in a square area in both landscape and portrait formats, with the Graffiti area removable to allow for full-screen running if apps support this. A small row of icons linked to the Graffiti area allow for volume changes, screen orientation flipping and other odds and ends. All pretty standard features that we’ve seen in other Palm OS hardware.

Add your comment