The $300 handheld Pilot from the Palm Computing arm of US Robotics Inc has been winning plenty of plaudits, but few products get rave reviews from hard-bitten columnists, so it is noteworthy that Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal reckons that after testing the Pilot daily for a couple of months, I can say it is by far the best little computer I have ever seen and the only one I can imagine incorporating into my daily life. Instead of being conceived as a stand-alone product, it’s primarily designed as a portable companion to a desktop computer, so that most of the data entry is done on the desktop and downloaded. Small amounts of data can be manually entered – by handprint, but that its not the primary method, so the size of the machine can be minimized and it is just 4.7 by 3.2 by 0.7 – much smaller than a Newton – and weighs less than 6 oz.
