The Razor Zayo A600

Razor USA is well known among our younger, hipper readers for the small, fold-up scooters you see in grade schools and on college campuses. It came as a bit of a surprise to receive a phone call from their press relations people informing me that they would be marketing a Pocket PC. Two days later a FedEx box was sitting on my desk containing the Razor Zayo A600 Pocket PC 2002.

Small but powerful

The Zayo A600 measures 4.92 x 2.95 x 0.5 inches and weighs 4.9 ounces. That makes it one of the smallest and lightest Pocket PCs around. It rests comfortably even in smaller adult hands, and you barely notice it in a coat pocket or purse. You can even carry it in a shirt pocket but be careful bending over; it's quite small and slips out easily.

The Zayo packs a lot of power for its size. It utilizes the newer 400MHz Intel PXA250 processor with XScale technology, and comes with 64 MB of SDRAM and 32 MB of flash ROM. It has a single expansion slot that lets you add up to 512 MB of storage memory with an optional Secure Digital card. Like many other Pocket PCs, it comes with four application launch buttons, a navigation/ game pad, a built-in microphone and speaker, and a stereo earphone jack. It also has a "jog wheel" on the left edge of the device that lets you use your thumb or finger to move up and down through menus or lists, and select items by pressing in on the jog wheel.

The Zayo has a very bright, 3.5 inch color touch screen that displays 65,000 colors. The combination of great display and fast processor make the Zayo an excellent choice for video and game lovers.

The Zayo's bright color screen and fast processor enhance its video capability.

Versatile three-speed performance

Zayo's "Run Modes" let you adjust the speed of the CPU to fit your needs:

• The Turbo Mode sets the CPU speed to 400 MHz, ideal for video and game play.
• The Standard Mode sets the speed to 200 MHz, for listening to MP3 audio files or for applications that do not require very fast CPU speed.
• The Power Saving Mode sets the speed to 100 MHz, for using text-based applications such as Word, Excel, etc.
• The Automatic Mode dynamically adjusts the CPU speed to 100 MHz, 200 MHz, or 400 MHz, depending on the program that you are running.