ViewSonic joins Pocket PC ranks
C|Net | at | by Mike
ViewSonic will join the growing number of handheld licensees of Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 operating system. Microsoft will announce on Monday that Walnut, Calif.-based ViewSonic will become the 29th licensee of its handheld operating system. ViewSonic will offer a $299 device, the V35 Pocket PC, starting Nov. 1.
The 4.9-ounce device will come with a 300MHz Intel XScale PXA250 processor, 32MB of memory, a 3.5-inch transflective color screen and a Secure Digital expansion slot. The V35 will also come with Microsoft PowerPoint file viewer and digital imager viewer applications. One of the major hurdles for Microsoft and manufacturers of Pocket PC 2002-based devices was the high price of the handhelds compared with those from rival Palm and its OS licensees. The devices had many high-end features supported by the OS, such as color screens, built-in audio players and voice recorders, which require more memory and a beefier processor.