The fourth entry is the PocketLink browser from MDevelopment (at http://www.mdevelop.com/product_PL.jsp). It's pictured in Figure D.

FIGURE D

PockLink comes from MDevelopment.

On the off chance I've missed any browsers that satisfy the basic criteria, I welcome vendors to let me know. I identified the above list by combing the product descriptions available on the major Palm OS download sites PalmGear, Handango, Tucows, and VersionTracker.

Review criteria
I based the first part of the comparison on the documented features of the products. Obviously, the quality and quantity of the documentation is critical for this to suffice. Fortunately, all four products give sufficient information to get started.

The second part of the review will compare the browsers using actual Web sites. In all honesty, part of my interest in this review is to find browsers that perform well on my favorite sites. Ultimately, the value of a browser is its ability to serve its user's needs.

I have specifically decided not to do a detailed technical comparison beyond what was feasible based on the documentation. Space and time constraints primarily motivate this decision. If you're interested in a more detailed technical review, please email me, and I will consider it as a future article.

Documentation
With the above declaration of the importance of documentation in the review process, it seems a good place to start a review. All four of the products come with, or make available, reasonable amounts of documentation. They mainly differ in volume, technical depth, and amount in the main distribution.

Blazer supplies the least documentation in the standard distribution. Handspring has chosen to only include a README with minimal installation and feature usage instructions and another text file with the software license. However, an extensive and detailed 44-page Technical Reference PDF is available from the Developers section of their Web site at http://www.handspring.com/developers/Devkit2/TechRef_Blazer_200.exe. This additional documentation covers everything from basic user manual treatment to detailed technical specifications and recommendations for developers and Web designers.

The Xiino distribution contains not only text files for the license and a README, but also a text file detailing the HTML specification support and a 32-page user manual in PDF format. Although the technical information doesn't have quite the depth of the Handspring documentation, it covers all areas you would expect from both a user and a technical perspective. The only strike against the Xiino documentation is the dependency of the English documentation on a Japanese font on page 13. This dependency causes warnings when printing or viewing without Japanese language support and prevents the PDF file from being converted for reading with Acrobat Reader for Palm OS.

PocketLink comes with a text file change log and a brief six-page PDF manual. Although the manual is brief, it adequately serves its key functions as a user manual and technical specification. Its four pages of well-labeled screen shots make for a very serviceable user manual. The one page of features, limitations, and installation instructions is useful, though scant compared to Blazer and Xiino.