Verdict: Schedule a six-hour appointment for gaming? No problem
Next time you're on a train behind a commuter who's fiddling with a shiny new PDA, take a look over his shoulder. No matter what he told his IT department, he's more likely to be using it to juggle Tetris blocks than scheduling business lunches. It's not surprising either; with high-res colour screens and fast processors, modern PDAs have better specs than many dedicated gaming handhelds.
The Zodiac is an attempt to make a Palm-powered device that's as much a gaming and media console as it is a PDA. Its layout is similar to portable consoles such as Sega's Game Gear and Sony's forthcoming PlayStation Portable. There's an analog joystick on the left, a cluster of buttons on the right, and two shoulder buttons. The pin-sharp screen is truly excellent and the anodised aluminium body feels tough and well made.
There are two MMC/SD slots on the top, although the Zodiac 2 comes with a healthy 128MB of built-in storage. It features a host of connection options, including Bluetooth. The only design flaw is the awkward manner in which the stylus is stored on the back of the unit.
The Zodiac 2 runs a modified version of Palm OS 5.2, so any modern Palm app should work fine. The screen is touch-sensitive, and there's a 'virtual' Graffiti area at the side of the screen. Conveniently, games, sound and movie playback functions can all be controlled using the joystick and buttons, so you don't have to fiddle around with the stylus.
The Zodiac 2 is a competent MP3 player, and its on-board rechargeable battery can play music for 16 hours on the trot. Sound quality is good, and you can even play music in the background while using the diary. It's a shame there's no wired remote available, and sometimes there's a very slight whirring in the background. Video playback is fiddly to set up, as you have to encode files on your PC first.
Annoyingly, it costs $30 to get the software that can make full-screen videos for the Zodiac 2. Although the re-encoded movies aren't great quality, the Zodiac 2 is still a very watchable portable video player.
File management is awkward too, as the Zodiac 2 doesn't support drag-n-drop - you have to use the HotSync application.
The main reason you'd buy the Zodiac 2 over one of its competitors, such as a Tungsten T3, is for gaming, but as a dedicated games machine, it's disappointing. The 8MB ATi Imageon W4200 graphics processor only has native support for 2D functions, so games look dated, although they can use the X-Forge graphics engine to do 3D rendering in software. The graphics on the most impressive title, Spy Hunter, are close to the quality of the original PlayStation.
However, the biggest letdown of the Zodiac 2 is the range of games available for it. Many of the flagship titles are nothing more than ports of old games.
Doom II is faithfully rendered, but the over-sensitive analog control and the lack of multiplayer capabilities means it doesn't compare favourably with the two-year-old GBA version.
Duke Nukem Mobile has been simplified beyond recognition, and none of the other games were addictive enough to make us regret returning our review unit.
Games are also very demanding of the battery, especially if they use the vibrate function a lot. Tapwave's estimate of four hours of gaming sounds about right, which is okay for daily commuting, but not so good if you're away from your charger for long periods.
Although the Zodiac 2 has been out for a year in the USA, the flow of new titles is slow. The Zodiac 2's saving grace could be amateur programmers. Anyone can use the development tools free of charge, and while apps that use Tapwave-specific APIs have to be cryptographically signed by Tapwave before they'll work, the company will sign amateur projects. One of the best free games on the platform is Orbital Sniper (ported from Linux). Little John Z, also free, emulates many classic consoles (SNES, NES, Game Boy and others) and there's a version of MAME called XCade available for under £6. You can play existing Palm games too.
CONCLUSION
The Zodiac 2 is no iPod, but it's a reasonable music player. It's also not really a Portable Media Center, although you could happily watch a TV show on it. But it is a capable Palm PDA and a fairly decent gaming platform. It's not quite that elusive digital Swiss Army Knife that will do everything, but it's the closest thing yet.
It's not cheap but if you don't want to lug around a console, PDA and media player, the Zodiac 2 could be the answer, if you don't mind the lack of modern games.
