The ViewSonic Pocket PC V37 maintains the same form factor and design as their V35 model. Looking at the V37, one can’t help but think of it as a no-frills design – clean and simple with nothing extravagant.

Holding the V37 in your hand, you’ll notice that the PDA has a solid feel and good handling weight to it. It doesn’t have a slippery grip which is great for the butterfingers out there like me.

The V37 follows the basic PDA formula by providing four programmable front buttons a directional navigation pad. The front buttons default to Notes, Contacts, Calendar, and Tasks. The navigational pad provides up, down, left or right movement.

The lower right corner of the front of the V37 is the speaker. I’m not a particular fan of the V37 sound system but it’s adequate for most uses. Occasionally, I did notice some light “cracking” emanating from the speaker during sound playback. The sounds were of course lacking depth during speaker playback and reminded me of what music sounds like on a small radio.

The upper right corner features two indicators. The left indicator is a notification light for appointments, alarms and reminders, while the right indicator is battery charging. When the battery is charging, this light will glow an amber color. It will turn off when the PDA is fully charged.

The left side of the V37 has a scroll dial which allows you to select a highlighted item, and move up and down within a document. Below the scroll dial is a plastic button for recording sounds. If there’s any complaint about the construction of the V37, it would be with this button (and the top power button). With the rest of the V37 being fairly solid, these buttons stand out looking a bit on the “cheap” side. Perhaps I’m being finicky but I can’t help being somewhat critical about buttons. I’ve handled too many devices where buttons break because of poor construction or manufacturing.

The lower portion of the left side is the stereo headphone port as well as the reset switch. You can unscrew the rear cap of the built in stylus and use the pointed end of the cap to press against the reset switch.

The back of the V37 is pretty much bare except for a small switch in the lower section of the PDA. This switch is known as the Battery Switch and restores the V37 to the factory default settings and clears all data stored in RAM. If you have no need to restore to default settings, leave this switch in the ON position. The V37 ships with the switch in the OFF position so make sure to slide it into the ON position before attempting to use the PDA or calling customer support.

The Battery Switch

The top of the V37 has an IR port for wireless communication to infrared devices such as laptops. In the middle is the Secure Digital memory slot which is SDIO compatible. This means you’ll be able to insert a Wi-Fi enabled SD card into the V37. Following the slot is the power button and the stylus slot.

Top of the V37	Bottom of the V37

The bottom of the V37 contains two ports – one interfaces with the USB cradle that allows you to charge the device and synchronize the Pocket PC with a PC. There is also a separate power connector that allows you to charge the V37 with an external AC adapter without being connected to the PC.

The cradle is well built and has a good weight and feel associated to it. It won’t be easy to top over the cradle while it’s placed on your desk. The V37 slides into the cradle effortlessly – there’s no tight fit at all. If you want to charge your PDA while docked, make sure to connect the AC adapter to the cradle.

Here are some comparison shots of the V37 and the HP iPAQ h2210