When TapWave first announced it would be coming out with a Palm OS handheld for gaming enthusiasts back in 2002 a lot of people took notice. It seems the startup struck a nerve, tapping into a potential consumer that until now hasn't found what've they've been looking for in a connected organizer.

While PDAs have gotten more powerful and plenty of games have been created, especially for the Palm operating system, the basic design has stayed the same. Though there have been some nice variations, especially in the PalmOne Tungsten T series and with several Sony Clie PDAs, these designs aren't the most conducive for what might be defined as console level gaming.

TapWave's Zodiac changes this with a form factor built from the ground up with games and entertainment in mind. The Zodiac isn't all form, however, as it includes the specifications and features to make it one of the most, if not the most powerful consumer handheld on the market.

At the PalmSource Developers Conference this week, while touting its newest operating system, Cobalt, PalmSource executives, including CEO David Nagel, offered kudos to TapWave for achieving the level of power and multimedia sophistication with Palm OS 5 in the Zodiac that they expected not to come to fruition until Cobalt devices hit the market, which at this point looks like the summer.

Zodiac comes in two flavors, Zodiac1 with a mere 32 MB of RAM for $299 and Zodiac2 (the model we looked at) with a whopping 128 MB, the most found in a Palm OS device, for $399. The extra 96 MB of memory is well worth $100. 12 MB of RAM in both Zodiac models is reserved for system use, which still leaves an impressive 116 MB in the Zodiac2 free.

The charcoal gray Zodiac2 has an elegant curvy design that is conducive to gaming with a leather flip cover to protect the display. It measures a reasonable 5.6 x 3.1 x .55 inches and weighs 6.3 ounces. In fact, the Zodiac's elegance rivals that of the Palm V, which set the standard for mobile devices back in the late nineties. Though it's made for entertainment, you won't feel out of place bringing the Zodiac into the boardroom.

For power, TapWave integrates a powerful 1540 mAH Lithium Ion battery in the Zodiac. It also includes an AC Adapter/ Battery charger that plugs into the USB cable which is used for connecting to a desktop. Unfortunately, TapWave chose not to bundle a cradle, which would have been nice in a $400 device, though they do sell one separately for only $20.

Zodiac is also the only Palm OS device to feature two Secure Digital slots. One slot supports Secure Digital and MultiMedia cards for memory expansion and content, while the second one supports these and SDIO enabled peripherals, which include, among other things, digital cameras, presentation solutions and GPS devices. Since the Zodiac doesn't include Wi-Fi (802.11b) wireless networking, it'll be nice to use one slot for Wi-Fi Secure Digital cards when those finally become available for the Palm platform.