Well I finally got my iPaq but it came with a cracked screen so I’ve not been able to do anything with it. Actually I got it last Friday but didn’t get to it until Monday afternoon and when I opened the box, put in the battery, attached the AC adapter and turned it on, it was clear that the screen was cracked. There’s a spider-web like pattern on the glass and there’s all kinds of colors all over it. I have no idea how it happened but seems like quality control at some manufacturing or distribution facility has failed this time for HP. Anyways, I’m in the process of getting it replaced so let’s hope that goes quickly and without problems. As soon as I have a working iPaq I will get back to you with my comments about it.
You know that if you buy a computer from Apple, for example, you shouldn’t buy the extra RAM from the same place because the markup is just so much higher than what you can find elsewhere, right? Well I’ve been getting som SD flash cards for my iPaq (see this earlier posting). If you buy the iPaq from HP’s site they will try to sell you SD cards for the following prices:
- 256Mb for $54.99
- 512Mb for $84.99
Dell (and I’m sure this is not the cheapest you can find) sell Kingston’s 512Mb SD card for $42.39 (minus $13 MIR) and the 256Mb for $21.59 (plus a $5 MIR).
A List Apart has a pretty good guide to designing web pages for small devices like PDAs.
If you’re a WordPress user, Alex King provides a plugin that automatically formats your site to suit small screens. I put it to work on my site and you can see the mobile version if you like.
I settled on an iPaq RX3715 for a PDA. Well, “settle” is probably the wrong word to use since I tried the 3715 out at a local store and I really, really liked it (but I ordered it online to get a better price). One big point in HP’s favor compared to Dell, for example, is that HP stuff is sold almost everywhere. I can walk in to the local Office Depot and there’s a ton of HP items. The RX3715 is small, light, has a great screen, and if I get some 6-8 hours of batterylife out of it (like many tests and opinions say online), that’d be really great. Now I need a good case for it (I really like Krusell’s Multidapt cases), probably an extra battery (there’s a 3200mAh battery available that should give me over 12 hours of running time), a car charger, and some memory cards (got two 512Mb cards to start with). Then there’s software… Years ago I was a Pocket PC user, well actually, it was before it was Pocket PC, when it was still Windows CE. The most recent one was a Philips Nino 312. It was a real multimedia powerhouse for its day but badly underpowered. Anyway, I was up to speed on Pocket PC software back then, but I am totally out of sync now.
Compelling reading for all PDA-fans.
Since I’ve been contemplating getting a Pocket PC PDA I’ve been looking at ways to watch movies with one during long flights for example. Today I found DVD to Pocket PC and tried it on a DVD movie. The movie is around 90 minutes long and with the setting in the software to fit the quality so that the movie fits on a 256Mb memory card it is actually pretty okay. I say it’s “okay” with the intended use in mind - watching the movie on the PDA using earphones.
Today I looked at the HP iPaq RX3715 PDA and I must say I’m pretty impressed. It looks cool, has most everything I want (like wifi and Bluetooth) and according to some tests online it runs an amazing seven hours or so on one charge. It also has a 1.2 megapixel camera built-in which won’t get you any real high-quality shots but it should be okay for a little everyday shooting for a moblog or similar. A slight problem is that the pricetag of around $450 seems a bit high.
I have been sans-PDA for some time now, after ditching my Sony Clie about a year ago, and the last couple of months I’ve been doing plain-old-paper-organizer again, but it’s not working very well. So I’ve been thinking about going down the PDA-route again and considered which one to get. Ideally I would want a phone/PDA combo that also does wifi, but that’s out of my budget-range for right now so I have to stick with just a PDA. So which one? Well, HP/Compaq’s iPaq’s have always been on the leading front of PDA development and they’re always pretty stylish but they’re also expensive. Dell’s Axims are perhaps not the hottest ones around but they seem solid and have most of the functionality that I would want. I definitely want wifi, and Bluetooth would be nice too. It would be nice to have a 640×480 VGA screen like the x50v but it’s too expensive. So far I’ve settled on the x30 which is fast at 624MHz, has wifi and Bluetooth, and an expansion slot. You can get it refurbished from Dell from around $280 right now. It’s got the standard 320×240 PocketPC screen, 64Mb memory (obviously expandable), and it looks pretty good.
I used to be a Palm-fan but now the options seem a bit slim. I’d like the Tungsten C with keyboard and wifi, but it’s $399. The Tungsten T5 seems really nice with a lot of memory and large screen but there’s no wifi. Sure you can get an expansion wifi card but that adds around $100 to the pricetag. Unfortunately it seems Palm is lagging further and further behind in the PDA-game, which I really hate. So if I get a PDA it’s going to be a Pocket PC. There are Linux PDAs but they seem pretty far behind in terms of connectivity and interoperability to me, so it will be years before I would consider one, most likely.
Today’s Woot it pretty interesting. It’s a Compact Flash 802.11b wifi card with 128Mb storage space and a Compact Flash to PCMCIA adapter for $19.99. If you’ve got a PDA with a CF-slot you can probably use this to get online without wires.
Update: Unfortunately now sold out.
Update: Geeks.com sell the same thing for $34 plus shipping so it was a pretty good deal it seems.
LuxPro has introduced the “Super Shuffle” mp3-player which looks remarkably like Apple’s iPod Shuffle. They look so much alike that there’s bound to be legal action taken in the near future. I’d be very surprised if we didn’t hear about this real soon again, probably with the news that Apple is suing. Let’s look at just some of the physical specs:
iPod Shuffle dimensions: 3.3 x 0.98 x 0.33 inches
Super Shuffle dimensions: 3.3 x 0.98 x 0.38 inches
iPod Shuffle weight: 0.78 ounce
Super Shuffle weight: 0.776 ounce
Seems amazing to me that a company would do a thing like this, especially with Apple’s track-record of furiously protecting their products and their image.
LuxPro is apparently a Taiwanese company. They should work some on their English:
LUXPRO CORPORATION is recognized by a technological group. They work in researching, designing, and innovation products for over 30 years. LUXPRO always insists to provide you comfortable customer services and high quality products to match your requirements.
We will keep going to be a designing leader. Our products are always so useful to meet what you need. Our mission is to improve your living quality and to create your life value. If you can imagine it, LUXPRO CORPORATION can make it.
No matter how old you are, what you do, or where you live, chances are a LUXPRO CORPORATION product touches your life.
I’m not saying they should work on their English to make fun of them but to make the point that online users don’t really care where you are located or from where you are - they just expect correct language.
Update 3/21/2005: It seems like it was all a publicity stunt.
[posted with ecto]
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