Toshiba’s e805 to Sport VGA Screen, WLAN, 192MB of Memory

by Grigoriy Gubankov
10/21/2003 | 04:51 PM

According to a news-story posted by this web-site, Toshiba’s upcoming e805 PDA will have VGA (480 x 640 pixels) screen resolution. In case the report is correct, Toshiba will have a PDA with a screen previously unachievable by conventional mobile devices.

So far there has been a number leaks of information regarding this device, but the screen resolution varied from report to report. Some of the claims stated about VGA resolution and others – about “normal” QVGA (240 x 320 pixels). Now it appears that such discrepancy was caused by a special technology implemented by Toshiba in its e805, which supplies PDAs with the ability to work in two different screen modes - VGA and QVGA. Presumably, this technology is actually a sort of pixel doubling.

320x240 resolution is still necessary since most Pocket PC applications do not have support for VGA resolution. Apparently, Toshiba will supply a separate launcher to display VGA-compatible software. BrightHand web-site reports the e805 will come with four applications that can use VGA screen.

Another web-site from Taiwan gives a lot of other information about the e805 PDA. According to the publication, the e805 will feature a 400MHz Intel XScale PXA263 processor. It will also offer 128MB of SDRAM, 32MB of ROM, 32MB of NAND Flash ROM and two slots for cards: CompactFlash Type II and SD/MMC. Certainly, it will use Mobile Windows 2003 operating system.

According to the same sources, the e805 will be 5.0 inches high, 3.2 inches wide and 0.7 inches thick (130mm by 78mm by 16mm) and weigh 6.9 ounces (195g).

As many other high-end PDAs, it will offer WLAN wireless networking with Voice over IP (VoIP) software bundled that will allow it to call other VoIP devices for free, as Toshiba told The Wall Street Journal a while ago. Toshiba’s reps also stated that the e805 would be announced later this month.

According to J&R and Amazon.com, Toshiba’s suggested price for the e805 will be $599. Quite reasonable price for this kind of device, I suppose.