Handheld computer prices are falling at the moment. Pocket PCs are getting ever closer to the £200 barrier and you can get a serviceable Palm in the shape of the Zire for less than £80.

With products like this around should you look at anything else? Sharp clearly thinks so.

There is a lot that is familiar about the ZQ-800P. A set of built-in applications includes an address book, a diary, a to-do list manager, a memo pad, a notepad, a calculator and an email viewer. There is even an attachment viewer that can cope with including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and web page documents.

You get 8MB of memory, and some PC software for synchronising with Microsoft Outlook. Data entry is achieved via a touch-sensitive keypad and software second-guesses the word you are currently writing, to help speed the process up.

To save screen space, the key pad only includes letters. Numbers and special characters become available on-screen when you are using an application that might require their use. Oh, and you get quite a nice carrying case too. Power is supplied by two AAA batteries.

So far, things sound good, but the Sharp is flawed. The link to the PC is by serial port rather than USB. This makes data exchange slow and if you've a PC without serial connections, you'll need a converter.

More importantly, the software on the XQ-800P is Sharp's own, which means the third-party applications you can use are limited, unlike with Palm or Pocket PC-based handheld computers.

There are no slots for you to augment the storage memory and no infrared for data-transfer. We found the screen difficult to read in dull light, though the backlight helped.

Against Palm's Zire, the ZQ-800P is over-priced and under specified. If Sharp was to halve the price, we would be positive about it. As it stands, the ZQ-800P is a handheld computer which the competition knocks into a cocked hat.

Contact: Sharp 0161 205 2333
www.sharp.co.uk

Also consider
Palm Zire
£80