Casio E-125 Pocket PC

Casio just released the Cassiopeia E-125 Pocket PC, an incremental upgrade of its popular E-115 Pocket PC. The E-125 builds on the strengths of the E-115, giving users a well-tested and stable platform that can use accessories from its E-100 series Palm-size PCs or it's E-115 Pocket PC.

The Cassiopeia appears identical to the latest Casio Pocket PC, the E-115. It has the same game button on the lower left below the display, with three user-programmable application launch buttons on the lower right. On the left edge of the E-125 you'll find the power (on/off) button, the fourth application launch button (set to activate the Start menu), the rocker button to navigate through menus and select options, and the voice record button (hold down and talk to make a voice recording). Also located on the top of the left edge is the stereo headphone jack. Plug in stereo headphones and you can listen to voice recordings, or high-quality MMP or MP3 music.

Hardware enhancements to the E-115

The E-125 will replace Casio's E-115 as Casio's first-string Pocket PC. The new Cassiopeia has NEC's newer NEC 4122 CPU running at 150 MHz (up from the E-115's 133 MHz processor). The new CPU has twice the Cache of the older one. Both these features speed up the performance. I noticed it when opening and closing documents. Casio claims a 30% improvement in speed based on benchmark tests. To speed things up even further, Casio includes a USB connectivity cable with the E-125. This allows you to synchronize data and transfer files much faster than with a serial cable. (However, there is an optional serial cable available if your desktop PC doesn't have a USB port.)

The E-125 has 32 Mb of on-board RAM memory, split between data/file storage and system memory to run programs. It has a 240x320 65 K color backlit screen. It does appear to be a little brighter than the E-115's screen. It's quite readable indoors, and even passable outdoors when I shaded it with my hand.

Hardware options for the E-125 are listed in the Spec Sheet on page 20. Of note is Casio's Digital Camera Card, which lets you record and play back movies and still images on the E-125. Casio also offers Landware's GoType portable external keyboard as an option for the E-125. Casio offers a cable to connect the E-125 to a CDMA mobile phone. They will also be offering a CompactFlash format CDPD modem card that will work with the E-115 and E-125.

Built-in and add on software

The Casio E-125 comes with the Windows CE 3.0 operating system and Microsoft Pocket PC applications built in. The latter include MS "Pocket" versions of Outlook, Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, Money, Streets, File Explorer, Reader, and Windows Media Player. It also includes Solitaire and various setup and configuration utilities.

The following Casio custom applications are built into the E-125:

• Button Assignment lets you configure the launch buttons to start other applications.
• Card Backup lets you backup data to a CompactFlash card.
• Menu is user-definable iconic start menu. Tap on a programs icon to launch it.
• Mobile Address Book and Mobile Calendar are Casio's alternative views to Pocket Outlook's Contacts and Calendar applications.