The relatively short battery life of the Pocket PC hinders its great multimedia capability. Thankfully, a number of power accessories are available to solve this problem, including Power Runner 2 External Battery, which I review in this column.

IBM has two voice recognition applications; one that lets you control your Pocket PC through voice commands and another that translates English to French, Italian, German, and Spanish, and from these languages back into English. Find out more about ViaVoice below.

Finally, don't forget to stop and smell the roses--and play a few games while you're at it. Check out my review of King's Mahjongg and Monopoly for the Pocket PC.

An external rechargeable battery

You can use your Pocket PC to listen to MP 3s, play great games, and even watch full-length movies. But these activities can quickly drain your battery. If you're traveling and do not have access to a power outlet, you might want to take along a spare battery or an accessory like the Power Runner 2 Universal Battery from Laptops for Less (www.laptopsforless.com). The PR2 is an external rechargeable lithium-ion battery with a 3,500 mAH capacity at 5 volts (compare with the iPAQ 3970 Pocket PC, which has a 1400 mAH battery). The dimensions of this external battery are 5 x 1 x 1.5 inches and it weighs 8 ounces. The battery ships with a leather case, an AC power adapter, and a cigarette lighter adapter to charge the battery when you're in the car. To get the appropriate cable connector, you must specify the make and model of your Pocket PC when you order.

A rechargeable battery that can charge your Pocket PC up to three times.

The PR2 battery has four LEDs, which indicate how much charge the battery has. For example, when the battery is fully charged all four LEDs are lit, and with a 1/4 charge only one is lit. You can charge your Pocket PC three times with a fully charged PR2 battery. When stored and not used, the battery loses a fourth of its charge every two weeks.

I charged my iPAQ 3870 Pocket PC using this battery and it worked well. The PR2 is a little larger than other charging solutions that I have seen for the Pocket PC, but other than that it is a great accessory to keep with you while you are traveling. The PR2 ships with a standard connectivity cable and four connector adapters which allow you to use it with most laptop PCs. As of late October, adapter cables were available for HP iPAQ Pocket PCs, Toshiba Pocket PCs, and Casio E-200, EM500, and E-125 Pocket PCs. The price of the battery is $59 and it can be purchased from Laptops For Less (http://store.yahoo.com/laptopsforless/pr2powrunmod.html).

Control Your Pocket PC with your voice

IBM ViaVoice Mobility Suite lets you use predefined voice commands to open applications and control your Pocket PC. In addition, you can have Pocket Outlook information read out loud through the Pocket PC's speaker or earphones, using IBM's ViaVoice text-to-speech technology.

IBM ViaVoice lets you use voice commands to open applications and access PIM data.

You must assign one of the Pocket PC's hardware buttons to activate ViaVoice. Once that's done, you hold that button down when you speak out the voice commands, and ViaVoice does the rest.

There are two types of commands that you can give in this application: global commands that work in any application, and application-specific commands that will work only when you are within Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, or Inbox. If you're not sure what commands are available, press and hold down the assigned hardware button and ask "What can I say?" and a screen will pop up, displaying a list of all the voice commands available in that application. The words and short phrases with a red circle in front of them are not yet available--you have to train ViaVoice to recognize them.