Rex 6000

Personal organisers are getting smaller every day. Now we’ve even got ‘micro PDAs’ like the Rex 6000, the latest in the credit card-sized Rex line. As with its predecessors, the Rex 6000 is built on a standard PC Card platform, so it can plug directly into your Windows notebook to synchronise its diary, address book, memo jotter and to-do list against Outlook or the bundled
IntelliSync desktop. Of course, not everybody has a laptop, so the Rex comes with your choice of a serial or USB docking station for desktop machines.
The most significant improvements to the Rex 6000 are a generous 2M of storage, and the introduction of a touchscreen for data entry, with a pop-up keyboard that makes it much easier to enter or modify data.
The Rex also has a world clock and calculator, both long overdue, although there’s still no search function. If you have scores of notes and you’re looking for a specific item,
such as a bank account number, you’ll have to scroll through every note to find what you’re after. On any other PDA, this common procedure is a snap.
Don’t go looking for the wealth of third-party software available for the Palm or Pocket PC handhelds — the choice is limited to a mere handful of applets. But you can download clippings of news and information from the Internet through the free rex.net service.
While the diminutive size of the Rex 6000 makes it very portable, there are several drawbacks. The touchscreen is not very responsive, and It feels as if it could break at any time. The onscreen keyboard is hard to use without the stylus, and even then, it’s not recommended for entering large amounts of data. The Rex 6000 is also very slow compared to conventional handhelds.
Overall, the Rex 6000 is good value if you want an affordable way to carry around diary-type data from your Windows desktop or notebook.