So there was my TyTN II on eBay with 1 day and 1 hour left until the auction closed. It was on £205 and 49 people were watching the auction, which would normally mean a finishing price of around £400. This is a good price for a device that is a few months old, and yet I pulled the auction.

The TyTN II is big, bulky and unfortunately rather boring in almost every way. It is no beauty queen and many simply functions require too many touches to complete, which becomes irritating after a while. In the time that I have owned it, there has not been one major issue. GPS works perfectly every time, as does the GPRS connection for traffic updates. MS Exchange is flawless and I have had little reason to complain at all.

My Palm Centro has performed well in the time I have had it and it is incredibly quick to use, and as a day to day phone and PDA there is nothing I have seen to match it. The specs are poor but who cares if it works? My company car is rubbish on paper, but OK to drive each day and it never lets me down. My main issue with the Centro has turned out to be similar to the ones I had with the Treo-

Battery life could be a lot better, but is definitely better than the Treo. I usually have to top off the battery by 3pm on a busy day.

TomTom is not good on the Centro after all. It does slow at times with MS Exchange enabled and the TomTom Traffic signal drops 5 minutes into every trip. To be fair, Palm say it is not compatible but that has not stopped almost every retailer selling it as an accessory for the Centro. Maybe Garmin XT works perfectly on the Centro, and if you have tried it let us all know.

It does require management- I have had a few soft resets for no apparent reason, and soft resets do throw the time accuracy out. It’s not a big deal but a little quirk I could do without.

On the TyTN, I never have to tweak anything. It all works perfectly and is ultra stable, but oh so boring! Yes, a smartphone is not supposed to be exciting but some sense of enjoying the experience would be nice.

As it stands, the Centro and TyTN II are polar opposites that have genuine plus and minus points. I cannot figure out which is best for me, but suspect a workable GPS solution on the Centro would be enough to just pip the TyTN.

PDA247 is 6 years old!

As is traditional, we are going to celebrate by holding a competition, and this time you can enter whatever content you like!

It's completely up to you what you send in, but there are some specific areas that are worth remembering. We need a new forum banner (400x45 pixels maximum size) which should fit the current design, we are tempted to try new web site banners (1 for each site needed) and besides those you can send in software, hardware or accessory reviews. You can send in articles about the PDA world in general or maybe a few items that are newsworthy.

Whatever you choose to send in please make sure that you title your email "6th Birthday". You can also enter via the forum thread detailed below. Here's the prizes so far-

To enter please send an email with your entry (entitled "6th Birthday") to shaun (at) mailstm.co.uk or post your entry in this forum thread.

The closing date is midnight (UK time) 21st March 2008, so you have some time to think up a good entry.

I have added some free wallpapers in various sizes to the forum for you to download. Go to this thread and take a look.

If you would like to add some yourself, you can send them in to shaun (at) mailstm.co.uk or add them in the forum itself.

pdamill has released Wild Gears- "Wild Gears is our brand-new, off-the-track R/C car racing game for Windows Mobile Classic, Professional, and Pocket PC devices.

Test your dexterity and driving skills in this energetic game with Four different Cups, Four unique R/C Cars, and 15 beautiful tracks to race on!

This simple, yet entertaining game combines traditional arcade racing games with unique mini R/C car-like controls and zany cartoon graphics resulting in an exciting, easy-to-play racing experience.

Wild Gears is intuitively designed to be enjoyable for anyone to pick up and play. You'll be driving mini R/C cars around in no time!

Wild Gears features beautiful cartoon graphics, intuitive controls, a rockin' soundtrack, and most of all, fun!"

Conduits Technologies, Inc. has announced the release of Pocket Player 3.6 for Windows Mobile 6 Standard, Professional and Classic devices. Pocket Player aims to satisfy consumers who demand more from a media player on a mobile device. Pocket Player 3.6 includes new improvements to the library and media browser, as well as many fixes to core functionality and plugins. Pocket Player is also compatible with Windows Mobile 5, Pocket PC 2003, and Smartphone 2003 devices.

MEDIA BROWSER ENHANCEMENTS
Pocket Player's media browser is used to navigate the device's media collection by artist, album, genre, and other attributes. On touchscreen devices, simple finger gestures navigate the browser list: a quick swipe on the list will scroll through the items on screen, with the list continuing to scroll, slowing down until the user taps a selection.

In response to customer requests, there is now an onscreen Back button in the media browser, that can be tapped to navigate up in the browser hierarchy. The previous method of dragging left-to-right now pops up a context sensitive menu, where commands to Enqueue, Play, or Delete items can be selected. This menu also contains the commands to exit the browser and return to the main "Now Playing" screen.

LIBRARY ENHANCEMENTS
The media library that powers the media browser has been enhanced in several ways in Pocket Player 3.6. Library performance has been improved, and all problems that have been reported have been addressed. The media library now properly handles compilation albums -- those albums whose tracks all have different artist tags.

The media library now supports improved reading of all tag types. In addition to ID3, Vorbis, APE and ASF (WMA) tag support, MPEG-4 tags are now read by Pocket Player. Many popular Windows Mobile devices, notably those from HTC and Motorola, contain decoders for M4A (MPEG-4 Audio) playback in Windows Media Player. Devices that contain this decoder can play M4A files, but in WMP (as in previous versions of Pocket Player) the tracks are not read for their metadata (such as artist, title, and album artwork tags). Version 3.6 of Pocket Player introduces this functionality, so that M4A files show up in the media browser properly.

OTHER FIXES
In addition to many fixes with the media library subsystem, Pocket Player 3.6 addresses all known and reported problems with the previous release, version 3.51, including issues related to device power, screen and backlight, Microdrive support, podcast feeds, and video support (specifically, issues with fast forwarding).

Various plugins have also been updated for Pocket Player 3.6. The FLAC plugin now reads all FLAC tags properly, including embedded album artwork in the track. The WM Adapter plugin has improved its tag import and export routines, enhancing performance. The MPC (Musepack) plugin has been updated to support new library features including the native APE tag support.

AVAILABILITY
Pocket Player 3.6 for Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone is available as a free trial from http://www.conduits.com/products/player/ where the user can download and evaluate both products unabridged for 30 days. More information, including a complete list of skins and features, can also be found at the Conduits website.

PDair has released a Leather Case for the Asus P527-

Removable 360 degrees belt clip included.
Opens and closes with magnetic studs,for ease of use.
White stitch finishing,making this case look more beautiful.

Karen has sent in details of the ASUS S71. engadget hate it, Karen loves it, I hate the design, but love the idea.

We hear it's pretty tough being a gadget with an identity crisis, and unfortunately for Asus' MS71, it definitely feels that pain. Thankfully for consumers who aren't turned off by rectangular (or atypically slender) mice, at least it provides a bit of extra utility. Quite simply, the base of the critter snaps off to plug into any open USB port; from there, it enables what's left to function as a wireless mouse and allows users to store an undisclosed amount of files on the appendage. No word on pricing or availability, but unless you place absolutely no value on ergonomics, we'd probably look elsewhere.