The Internet is becoming a more and more important part of our lives, particularly email and the World Wide Web. However, you normally have to lug around a laptop - or, somewhat impossibly - a desktop computer to connect! There's an easier way, though, as every Psion device since the Series 3a has been able to connect to the Internet. This article focuses on the EPOC devices, the Series 5, 5mx, 7, netBook and Revo.

There is one obvious hurdle to get over before you can connect. You need a modem, and some way to connect it to the phone network. If you have a GSM mobile phone with an infrared port, built-in or plug-on modem and your phone company will let you make data calls with it, you can get on the Internet anywhere. You only need to contact the phone company to enable data connections on your phone. If you haven't got a modem on your phone, but it has GSM and infrared, you can use the Psion 56K Travel Modem with your phone.

There is one problem, though - mobile phone connections are currently very slow. New technologies like GPRS and 3G are coming in the future, but at the moment you're stuck with GSM, which will only connect at 9.6 kilobytes per second in Europe. This is fine for email, but as Web pages with images tend to take up more than 100 kilobytes you'll be left waiting. Even with images off, it's too slow for regular browsing.

Your other option is connection via a landline. You can do this easily with Psion's 56K Travel Modem, which connects via infrared, but it's expensive and tends to cut off your connection. You could use an external PC serial modem instead, though. To attatch one of these you need to buy an cheap PsiWin cable adapter, available from Widget Software. This slots into the PC end of your PsiWin cable or Revo docking station, and then into a modem with a 25-pin cable (nearly all external modems). This last option is the one I chose.

Next, you need the software. If you're using a Series 7, you've already got everything you need! Series 5 users will need Message Suite, available from Psion's Web site. Series 5mx and Revo owners have Email pre-installed, but have to install Web from the PsiWin CD if you want to use it. It uses up about 1MB to install, and 1.5MB or more to run, so Revo users in particular should make sure that they have enough memory. netBook users may have the software already installed, or may have to install it separately.

The last thing you need to do is set up your Internet connection. Revo users are lucky, because the eSetup wizard guides you most of it, but owners of other Psions should go to the System Control Panel. You should enter the required information into Dialling, Internet and Modems. Revo users might also want to check these settings in the case of problems. To set up email accounts, go to Email, then Tools<Add New Account<Email. You may also want to go to Web's Tools menu to set up preferences, although the default settings should work for most Internet service providers.

Now your hardware and software is set up, you're all ready to go! Connect your modem to the phone line or turn on infrared on your mobile phone, then start Email and click on one of your remote mailboxes, then 'Open mailbox'. Check the location, modem, Internet service and telephone number are all set up correctly and click OK! Your Psion should sign up to the Internet service and download your new email subjects, which you can download by copying or moving them to your inbox (the latter removes them from the server, so use the former if you want a copy on your PC as well). You can also send from the Outbox while you're connected to your mailbox(es).

Changing to Web, you can recieve nearly any Web page which isn't dependent on JavaScript, ActiveX or other special technologies. You can install Java from the PsiWin CD to allow you to use most Java programs embedded in Web pages on a Series 5, 5mx, 7 or netBook, though. The Revo doesn't really have enough memory to accomodate Java, so it's not available. It will still eat up plenty of memory on the other devices, though.

So, what's the Internet like experienced on a Psion? Web is horribly slow, even on a Series 7 with its 133Mhz Intel processor - a netBook might be a little better, but I don't have access to one for testing. Its page layout is okay, on the whole, but where Web shines is its zoom feature. Particularly helpful on the Revo, or for showing Web sites designed for larger screens on the other Psions, it means that you can scale down the entire page for easier viewing rather than just the text. The Series 7/netBook colour screen is great for Web page access, though, as most sites appear in full without getting too squashed.

Email is a pretty good program. It does what it's meant to do well, and my only problem with it is that it doesn't add chevrons (>) before lines you're replying to. Luckily, you can use a Macro5 macro to do this for you.

I have experienced more problems than I have otherwise in the Symbian EPOC32 operating system whilst using the internet. On my Revo, I had to soft reset several times whilst using the Internet, and once on my Series 7. I also got inexplicable out of memory errors on my Series 7, despite having over 8MB of RAM remaining.

So, is there any point to using your Psion for a mobile Internet connection? Yes, particularly if you need access from anywhere (a mobile phone is ideal for this). If you tend to use the World Wide Web a lot, and you're using one of the larger machines (ie, not the Revo), purchasing the Opera Web browser might be a good idea, as it is faster and has more capabilities, including JavaScript. It can be downloaded free from Psion Enterprise if you use a Series 7 or netBook - look for their Partner Program.

I'd rather not use a Revo or Series 5mx for regular Internet access, but a Series 7 or netBook would probably be fine with a few added third-party programs (for example, Opera for Web pages, RMRNews for USENET newsgroups and nFTP for updating Web sites and downloading files using File Transfer Protocol).