ASUS MyPal A620BT Review (3)

As we can see from the benchmark tests, the ASUS A620BT wins almost all other similar configured PDAs except it lost some to the Fujitsu-Siemens LOOX. In platform index, it is shown that the ASUS A620BT loads application much faster than the rest. This is so for its graphics index and also in most applications like database, word, excel.

	HP iPAQ h5550 (2003, 400MHz)	Dell Axim X5 (2002, 400Mhz PXA250)	Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket LOOX 610 (2003, 400MHz)	Toshiba e750 (2003, 400MHz)	ASUS A620BT
Spb Benchmark index	1112	752	1610	1225	1579
CPU index	1874	912	1813	1838	1856
File system index	1061	855	1175	1128	1108
Graphics index	527	434	3943	688	3838
ActiveSync index	1209	1518	1775	1751	1578
Platform index	978	629	1341	1085	1352
Write 1 MB file (KB/sec)	1237	657	1282	1221	1285
Read 1 MB file (MB/sec)	27.2	15.9	27.4	26.8	29.1
Copy 1 MB file (KB/sec)	1240	716	1279	1252	1276
Write 10 KB x 100 files (KB/sec)	773	477	936	859	743
Read 10 KB x 100 files (MB/sec)	7.32	5.26	10.7	9.62	7.72
Copy 10 KB x 100 files (KB/sec)	674	376	830	757	621
Directory list of 2000 files (thousands of files/sec)	20.6	112	20.4	20.5	22.8
Internal database read (records/sec)	1435	398	1518	1391	1532
Graphics test: DDB BitBlt (frames/sec)	51.7	41.8	305	68.4	314
Graphics test: DIB BitBlt (frames/sec)	23	12.3	27.3	22.9	27.2
Graphics test: GAPI BitBlt (frames/sec)	54.8	47.1	722	73.2	678
Pocket Word document open (KB/sec)	37.5	22.5	41.6	37.7	43.8
Pocket Internet Explorer HTML load (KB/sec)	5.88	4.73	9.49	7.28	9.63
Pocket Internet Explorer JPEG load (KB/sec)	217	79.7	245	233	243
File Explorer large folder list (files/sec)	544	238	625	569	639
Compress 1 MB file using ZIP (KB/sec)	259	65.5	249	243	264
Decompress 1024x768 JPEG file (KB/sec)	609	423	609	607	613
Arkaball frames per second (frames/sec)	48	38.2	245	61	246
CPU test: Whetstones MFLOPS (Mop/sec)	0.076	0.061	0.077	0.075	0.076
CPU test: Whetstones MOPS (Mop/sec)	55.3	54.1	55.5	55.2	55.2
CPU test: Whetstones MWIPS (Mop/sec)	5.01	3.96	5.03	4.99	5.01
Memory test: copy 1 MB using memcpy (MB/sec)	107	65	99	106	102
ActiveSync: upload 1 MB file (KB/sec)	110	142	158	157	145
ActiveSync: download 1 MB file (KB/sec)	226	249	367	345	277

The ASUS A620BT is a pretty impressive PDA considering that this is their second model of its range of PDAs. In terms of functionality, A620BT has the necessary expandability but it still uses the CF instead of the newer SD. Well, CF might be a cheaper solution but it seems that it also consumes a lot of power when we tried it with a CF 802.11b card to wirelessly access the internet.

The built-in battery makes the A620BT not so appealing for those who rely the PDA for most of the work as it can't be replaced by another if it goes flat. Most restaurants might not have power points for you to charge your PDA. Better charge up and makes sure it is 100% full before you are on your move.

Overall, the A620BT is a fast mean machine. It has all the necessary capabilities which is a bit different from the European makers. The SmartKepper feature is a plus though for you to save your current system state into the memory.