The past few years have been a rocky ride for us Palm fans. The time when no self-respecting geek ever left home without a Palm V tucked in their pocket now seems like ancient history.

The intervening years have seen the company churn out a range of not especially exciting models, while PDA's touting of Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system, especially the HP Compaq Ipaqs, has stolen the high ground.

Palms have also been eclipsed by the growing range of ever more sophisticated high-end smartphones like 02's XDA and the Sony Ericsson P800 and even by companies like Sony and Handspring who have put the Palm operating system to good use on their exciting and innovative products.

And while Palm's Tungsten T, which debuted at the end of last year showed a few moves in the right direction - a decent screen and for the first time a keypad (a real boon - I'd always just hated those smug types who use the Graffiti handwriting system!) it was still no match for the Pocket PC heavyweights.

Well the good news is that once again I am stepping out toting my Palm with pride and that's all due to the Tungsten C, which hit the stores this week. It's a PDA that takes Palm's heritage (a very efficient operating system, simple to use software and all of course all those third party applications) and brings it bang up to date by improving its PDA power and adding several key features.

The big story is that the Tungsten C its Palm's first model that includes integrated Wi-Fi. As anyone who has ever surfed the Internet on a handheld, whether it is the 02 XDA or even the Palm Tungsten T in conjunction with e Bluetooth mobile, it's a slow and trying experience as you are relying on snail-like GPRS speeds.

Once integrated into a Wi-Fi network the Tungsten C, with its excellent browser imaginatively named Web Browser, delivers all kinds of pages at lightning speeds. E-mail via its VersaMail software (which supports up to eight POP3 or IMAP accounts), is also downloaded painlessly and quickly.

Unlike Wi-Fi systems on some rival PDAs, the wireless system is a dream to access and set up. With around two clicks I was connected to my home wireless Lan and the Tungsten C had no problems finding and connecting to a Starbucks Hot Spot in London.

Admittedly Bluetooth would have been a handy addition to connect up to my Siemens S55 for GPRS surfing. The trouble is though once you've surfed on handheld at broadband speeds, you'll find GPRS painfully slow. If you must you can add a Bluetooth SD card as the Tungsten C is one of only a handful of devices to support SD (Secure Digital) IO cards. As these become more common you'll be able to cameras and other gadgets.

The Tungsten C's other big trump card is that it is incredibly fast for a PDA. It features Intel's 400Mhz PXA255 XScale processor - the same as used by high-end Compaq Ipaqs - which offers instant access to your applications. Anyone who has previously owned a Palm will notice the difference in speed. It's certainly fast enough to deliver a quality video performance via the Kinoma player. The Tungsten C also has 51MB storage (previous Palms had a paltry 16MB) so you can even house a few large files without having to resort to adding an SD card.

Given that the Tungsten C is ostensibly targeted at the corporate market, the fun feature count is low. There's no integrated MP3 player - I downloaded the Real One player. Besides Palm has short-sightedly only included a mono speaker and no headset.

I am not overly concerned about this though for the Palm has found a neat role in my home as a kind of mini web tablet with me sneaking a peek at websites and checking my e-mail while my girlfriend is engrossed in some reality TV show. I searched in vain for any TV/DVD controlling software for the C, but I am sure it can only be weeks away, and when it arrives she'll be in trouble.

So it seem we finally have the PDAs us Palm fans have been waiting. Integrated Wi-Fi, a neat keypad, one of the best screens around, and a fast processor all wrapped up in a device so compact it makes the Ipaq and its Pocket PC siblings look positively bloated.

And then there's the price: £400, or as low as £320 on the web. Welcome back Palm!