Tapwave Zodiac Palm PDA Tops them all

I have had more than a years experience with the tapwave zodiac palm pda.

It is in my opinion the greatest palm in existance when I got it and still is today nearly 2 years old even when comared to palms released today and including most if not all PPC's

Here is why.

Raw Specifications. the only place the zodiac is lacking is raw CPU power. with the different CPU formfactors its hard to compare them. its 200mhz CPU is roughly equivalent to a 400mhz Xscale processor in its abilities. where it lacks is that the xscale is insanely over clockkable. you can overclock a T3 to nearly 600mhz. so in a pure mhz battle it looses. but this can be handles buy optimizing software which is now starting to happen for the zodiac (more later) Plus the Zodiac has a Dedicated Yamaha Sound Card and ATI Video card built in. this takes a lot of the load off the CPU in many cases when used properly.

Lets go over the hardware.

The Unit itself is extremely sleek and compact yet has a spacious and glorious screen. 3.8" 480x320 screen is simply stunning to look at.

its just over 13mm thick and made of Aluminum. a very good thing. I will never own a plastic PDA again. I can not count how many times I have accidentally dropped my zodiac and counted my blessings that it was made of metal.

Its curved its sexy and its very comfortable. its a little cramped if you have massive hands like I do but for most people with normal sized hands this is NOT an issue by any stretch. with very few exceptions I can not think of a way to improve the physical layout and design of the unit. I hope if they ever make new hardware they keep the same basic physical design as its definately a winner.

Screen

The screen is what initially attracted me to the zodiac. at the time it was the highest resolution screen available on a commonly available consumer handheld in this class and the price was right ($400 at the time MUCH cheaper now)

even today its hard to find a comparable pda for the price.

I regularly keep a couple hundred of my pictures loaded up for displaying to others on it magnificent screen.

Nice bright and highly adjustable. my only complaint is that even on the lowest setting its sometimes too bright. Example reading ebooks in a dark room I wish I could make the screen even dimmer than the lowest setting :-)

Memory

This is where the Zodiac really shines. 128mb of INTERNAL ram and DUAL SD card expansion including SDIO (more later)

with SD cards now available in a 2gb variety I can load up 4gb of memory into the zodiac (this has been tested and works fine !)

or I can load up one 2gb card and an SDIO accessory such as GPS, something not possible on any other palm currently available.

the 128mb of internal memory is very nice. only the new T5 and soon Lifedrive have more but they both have dire consequences to that extra memory.

Ports and Comms

It off course has a sync connector for USB and an available SERIAL cable for developers. it also has Bluetooth built in as well as IR (Infrared)

Power

Power accessories is something it is lacking. (car chargers etc..) the internal battery is amazing. almost 80% of the internal volume of the zodiac is the 1540mah Lithium battery ! I have run mp3's with the screen off for over 7 hours continious and at that point I just gave up and went to bed :-) I have also gotten over 3 hours of video playback.

Some have gotten 12 hours of ebook reading with the screen dimmed and underclocking it slightly. this is not typical though 6-8 hours should be easy. 3-4 hours at high drain (sound screen and gaming) should be doable for most users.

it recharges quickly too usually under an hour never more than 2 hours.

Software and gaming

it comes with stunt car extreme a 3D racing car game that is actually quite stunning (www.zodiacreview.com for lots of screen shots) and acid solitaire. and it supports wireless multiplayer.

there is a nice variety of games avaialble as well as a few high end pro level games.

its strong point in game selection comes from emulation.
Original Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Sega Master System, Sega Genises, Game Gear, Turbo Grafx 16 (also known as PC engine) Colecovision, Atari 2600, Mame (arcade machines hundreds of them!), Wonderswan, Neo Geo Pocket and there is likely a few I forgot. they all work near perfectly except SNES and Genises which are a teeny bit slow right now. And a Gameboy Advance Emulator is in the works.

it also has FULL MP3 and Video playback. with the new free core codec player it can playback full resolutuon 480x320 video in divx/xvid and looks STUNNING !!

it can playback almost any media file you can load onto it with the appropiate software. even midi files (I like midi files)

Sound

It off course has a headphone jack but whats really nice is lound crystal clear high quality yahama built in stereo speakers! I dont like using head phones if I dont have to so this is REALLY nice. a feature most pvp's (portable video players) lack.

Some say the sound quality from the zodiac is better than an ipod. I can not really hear a difference (I have both) they both sound fantastic.

The Zodiac also supports the SDIO WIFI card and the zodiac comes with a web browser and e-mail client. With bluetooth you can also link up to a Bluetooth enabled CELL Phone and get on the internet that way. they also have bluetooth GPS untis so you can use GPS mapping and still have both SD Slots free.

Gaming and Controls

This is an aspect that truly sets the zodiac apart from the rest of the pack including the PPC field.

most pda's are useless for gaming. even if you have a vga screen and 600mhz cpu overclocked to 800 so you can play PS1 or something like that whats the point if you can only watch ? most pda have hard to impossible BUTTON interfaces to let you actually PLAY the game.

the Zodiac has a Landscape formfactor. it has a true analog joystick with 4 action button 3 extra usable buttons and 2 shoulder trigger bottons. you can also push in the joystick as another button.

finally those emulators are actually USEFUL since you HAVE the controls to actually play them !!

We also have gorgeous ports of Doom Hexen and Quake (quake is a wee slow still)

let me tell you doom and doom 2 look STUNNING in full 480x320 glory !!

All this and it looks extremely professional. does not come across as a "gameboy" will be right at home in the boardroom.

for a large list of games and programs check out www.zodiacreview.com and its not nearly complete.Hundreds of screen shots showing the fantastic screen of the zodiac. www.plankfilms.com has VIDEO reviews of some of the zodiac games.

www.tapland.com and www.zodiacgamer.com are public user forums for the zodiac for the latest news etc..

www.tapwave.com is where to get it. CompUSA and JR also carry the zodiac.

There is a nice assortment of accessories available from hard and soft cases - screen protectores Styluses Gaming Grips etc..

All around its about the best PDA available on the market BY FAR. nothing else can touch it on all points
if you want raw pure 3d Gaming get a PSP

IF you want a Killer PDA Killer Multimedia and Killer Nostalgia gaming (Emulation) device with a pretty decent variety of newer games then get the Zodiac. nothing can touch it!

Sadly Tapwave is now out of buisness. tapwave.com wont get anything anymore. They just ran out of money. This is a real pity since the hardware is so amazing. Good news is that many developers have released there titles for free now. Homebrew Developers are STILL coding for it. We now have a nearly functional Playstation emulator that actually works ! it looks like it might even be possible to optimize it enough to make many games playable ! there is also rumor of a possible GBA emulator coming soon.

Piscel Browser is working now so we have native pdf viewing (a developer is also working on a zodiac native pdf viewer)

Good news also is that you can now aquire the hardware at rock bottom prices (I bought 2 extra's) you can get Zodiac 1 and 2 units for $125-$225 dollars now ! olympic Systems will keep "repair" services alive for some time so if your screen breaks or battery dies you can get it fixed. All in all not too bad considering. Especially considering that it still the best all around PDA currently available for any price. I have yet to find another unit that even matches this unit not to speak of exceeding this unit for "any price"