Personal digital assistants (PDAs, or palmtops if you prefer) have come of age. Whatever the operating system they use, these gadgets are now as popular with consumers as they are with the business community. So we've decided to take another look (you can read our last round-up here) at these pocket-sized computers.

Microsoft's recently launched Pocket PC 2002, a development of the Pocket PC operating system adds a host of new features and refinements to the old software. The company has laid a down a strict new set of hardware guidelines for all devices using the new OS, probably the most important of which are that all devices must use flash ROM and the OS will only support chips based on ARM designs, most commonly the 206MHz Intel StrongARM SA-1110 processor. It will also support SrongARM's successor, the XScale, which Intel plans to launch early next year.

Also supported is a whole host of connectivity options ranging from Bluetooth, through wireless LAN (802.11b) to wide area networks, plus the ability to connect to Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and, by using the new Terminal Services application, access to Windows based servers. Going hand in hand with these is stronger password support to give some degree of security.

If this wasn't enough, the user interface has had a complete revamp, and the OS is more power efficient, with some of the PDAs here giving around 20 hours of battery life and all giving over ten hours' life - remarkable because they all have power-hungry colour screens and fast processors.

Not to be left behind, the Palm OS has also been updated, and the latest release, version 4, has gained improved security features and better mobile connectivity and the most important thing for faster data transfers - native USB support.

Here we take a look a seven of the newest PDAs available, all of which feature colour screens. Click on the 'NEXT' link below to find out more.