Toshiba lets Genio out of the bottle

Toshiba is entering the fray of the handheld market and going into direct competition with the likes of Palm and Compaq with two Windows CE devices.

Dubbed the Genio e550 and e550/MD, the handhelds feature 32Mb of memory, an Intel StrongARM 206Mhz processor, two expansion slots and the Windows CE operating system.

The MD model includes a 1Gb microdrive.

The pocket PCs weigh in at a slim 17.5mm and 180 grams. There are two expansion slots - an SD slot for a Secure Digital Input-Output card and an SD memory card, and a CF-II slot for compact flash cards.

Toshiba said the slots would accommodate third party products such as memory cards, PHS data communication cards, modem cards, Bluetooth cards and barcode readers.

Other cards, GPS and wireless Lan modules among them, will come to market soon.

Research from market analyst IDC predicts that this year's worldwide market of 13.52 million units will grow to some 30 million by 2004, revealing a fast-growing interest in the handheld market.

The GENIO e550 will be launched on 20 August and the GENIO e550/MD will follow at the end of September.