TAPWAVE Zodiac2 review

The Tapwave Zodiac is a combination of Palm-based organiser, media player and games platform, which Tapwave calls a 'mobile entertainment console'.

The hardware design is excellent. Tapwave wanted to make a games machine that didn't look like a toy - and it has. Held horizontally, it feels every inch the dedicated console, surpassing systems such as Nintendo's GameBoy Advance (GBA) with an analogue controller and a vibrating rumble effect.

Held vertically, it looks like a business-oriented PDA. Bluetooth is activated with a dedicated button rather than a hidden menu option. Its only design failing is the awkward, rear-mounted stylus.

The sharp, bright 480x320 screen is surpassed only by those of some high-end VGA Pocket PC displays. 3D graphics are rendered in software, but the smooth 3D of the bundled Stunt Car Racer Extreme game is impressive for a PDA, if just below the original PlayStation in quality.

The hardware is certainly capable, but the games don't live up to the unit's promise. The device's flagship titles, Doom II and Duke Nukem, are disappointing ports of old games. Both lack multiplayer options, while Doom II's controls are too sensitive and Duke Nukem's maps are over-simplified from those of the original. Most of the commercial titles we tried were derivative and mediocre, and some cost as much as £30.

There are a few promising games in the pipeline, but you may end up spending more time on the excellent multi-format emulators Xcade, for coin-ops, and LittleJohnZ, which emulates many pre-GBA handhelds. Acquiring ROMs for these legally is difficult, though.

We tried the Zodiac2, with 128MB of built-in memory. You'd be better off getting the £269 32MB Zodiac and spending the extra money on a high-capacity SD card.

With extra storage, the Zodiac handles multimedia well. MP3 playback is good, and you can even play videos encoded in the Kinoma format. To encode widescreen video you need to buy a $30 (around £17) Kinoma licence, and you'll be lucky to get an entire feature film on a 512MB SD card. Battery life is impressive and we got close to the promised 16 hours for music. Games exhaust the battery after four or five hours, though, which compares poorly to the GBA's 12 hours.

When you bear in mind that it's also a high-end Palm PDA, the Zodiac is an attractive all-in-one option. If juggling a separate console, media player and organiser doesn't appeal, it's a good choice.