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Revo
Revo plus (slightly upgraded Revo)
Series5

Display is 640x240, which is enough, and you can install any fonts you like. It's only greyscale, but as you say, that's fine for reading text. It does have a nice backlight, though, which is great for reading in bed!

It takes AAs instead of having an inbuilt rechargeable, but that's how I prefer it -- if you want to use rechargeables, you can use any form of AA rechargeable you like. You can use a standard power adapter too. And if you're away from wall sockets for any length of time, you can take spare AAs, or even buy them. I've had enough bad experiences with proprietary batteries running out away from home, that I value that! I generally get 10-20 hours' use, but then I'm a power user, and just reading books should give much more.

It also doesn't have USB, but that's not really a problem for me. My Mac has a CompactFlash reader, so I pop the CF out of the 5mx and into the reader, and it mounts as a drive on the desktop. Great for backups and file transfers. As to capacity, it has 16MB of built-in memory, but you can get CFs over 1GB now, and if you can fill that with text I'd like to see it.

And since the same few objections get posted every time someone mentions ebooks:

• No, no-one's claiming ebooks will replace paper completely.
• No, we don't care that you don't like them.
• Yes, we still like them anyway.

Oh, and while I'm here, a quick unsolicited plug for Fictionwise as a good place to get texts. It's a shame that most of their latest stuff is DRMed, but they have a lot of good unrestricted stuff too.

I still use an old Psion 5mx as a PDA. It has a pretty similar form-factor.

In most ways it sounds like the FlipStart would be an ideal upgrade. However, the 5mx has a touch screen which does actually help a lot, and I suspect I would find myself being irritated by this limitation of the FlipStart.

Coincidentally enough, I use a Psion 5mx, the platform for which Symbian's OS was originally designed. Yes, I 'cart' it around. It lives in my trouser pocket, where it's very happy (no jokes please, missus), and is always accessible. I've seen a Communicator briefly, and discussed it at length with users, and I can tell that, compared with the 5mx, its lack of touch screen, poky keyboard, limited memory, small screen, and inaccessible software would make it far less useful to me.

Of course, not everyone is like me. But then, not everyone's like you either, so please don't judge everything by your standards.

Well, yes, the spec may be quite impressive for its size, but for actual usability and usefulness, it doesn't look like a match for my outdated but much-loved and vital Psion 5mx...

Please sign this online petition if you'd like to see the netBook Pro running EPOC/Symbian OS. I doubt it'll have any immediate effect, but by indicating people's interest in the platform, it may yet do some longer-term good.

I mourn the loss of Psion as was... while Symbian may have kept the core OS alive and in demand, that's no good to us if it's not being employed (or even promoted) in a form factor which can demonstrate its strengths. :(

It's a credit to Psion that, for all its screen problems, the 5mx is still an amazing bit of kit - still my machine of choice, to which nothing else comes close. I just wish that they'd recognise that achievement and cultivate it. If only they'd not chickened out of the market; a little marketing and promotion would have done wonders. [fx: sigh]

Linux is already portable on at least one PDA I know of: the Psion 5mx. Imagine this: if I get to connect it to the internet through my cellphone (irDa port), with Linux installed, that would make that device one heck of a portable tool!

Info on PsiLinux

Yes, I'm sure that for you, in your current circumstances and with current equipment, they're a no-go. But must you assume that it applies equally to everyone, in all circumstances, and for the foreseeable future too?

I'm a case in point: over the last couple of years, I've read far more onscreen than off. (And that's not due to having nothing else to read.) Why? I find it more convenient, for a number of reasons:

• It's there. I carry my pocket computer (a Psion 5mx) around with me anyway; I don't have to remember to pick up my latest reading material, and make extra space for it.
• Backlight. I can read in bed, or elsewhere at night, without needing a light.
• Bookmarks and other conveniences. I always lose physical bookmarks; when I don't use them, it sometimes takes a while to remember where I got up to. My reader app keeps track for me.
• Formatting and anglicisation. With physical books, I'm stuck with the spellings and mistakes that they're printed with; but I can edit ebooks and convert them to British English spelling, etc.
• Cut'n'paste. I don't have to retype quotes &c if I want to refer to them.
• Font size. Depending on the conditions, I can adjust the font size &c to match. For dead-tree books, the only `zoom mode' you have is to move your head closer to the object...
• Library size. I currently carry nearly a thousand books and stories with me, so I'm never stuck for anything. I really wouldn't want to try that with dead-tree editions.
• Cheapness. I read some stuff that's out of copyright and available for free (e.g. via Gutenberg). I also have many files purchased from Fictionwise, which is substantially cheaper than buying in dead-tree form. (I'm not admitting to having files of more dubious origin, too...)
• Searching. If I have vague memories of having read something, or want to check back, I can do a straight text search.

(BTW, I've never read anything on my Psion in the bath, but you might be interested to know that Douglas Adams actually wrote in the bath! Incidentally, on an older Psion model.)

Now, I'm specifically not saying that these advantages apply to everyone. I'm sure they don't. But that's exactly the point: neither do your disadvantages. Isn't it enough that some people like ebooks?

Personally, I'm very pleased with my mobile phone (as we call 'em over here); I don't spend hours with it glued to my ear, and I've never revealed the number to anyone at work so all the (rare) calls I get are welcome. I use the vibrating alert in conjunction with a quiet and unobtrusive ringtone, and I don't shout into it, so I don't disturb people. But many times it's been extremely useful for things like travel problems (delays or getting lost), co-ordinating shopping, or simply contacting people when I'm away from a landline. I've even used it to surreptitiously signal someone (giving 3 rings) when to make a 'surprise' call to wish someone happy birthday! And of course I don't just use it for voice calls - in conjunction with my palmtop, it's invaluable for keeping up with email and CIX messages when I'm away from home. (Got to maintain my geek cred somehow...)

I had thought this form factor had died out? It is DAMN hard to type on those little keyboards!! If you want more input functionality than a handheld, get a subnotebook like the Sony Picturebook or Fujitsu's Lifebook P-series. If you want more computing power in a handheld, get a tablet pc.

I had a Psion Series 5 for a while, which also feature a keyboard plus pen input. Despite how dated it is, I still consider it a great little machine--responsive, neat software, worked well with windows, etc. But that keyboard made my hands scream. Eventually, that became the key factor why I gave up using the thing.

I guess one caveat is that I haven't tried the new thumb-boards that are on the zaurus and the new palms, but at least they don't even pretend to be for real typing--and I can see how they'd be useful for passwords, etc.

Of course, the benefits of open formats aren't limited to being able to use them on any platform. For example, I can convert American spelling to British, fix errors, improve the typography with smart quotes, add automatic bookmarks, &c. And I can easily quote sections in correspondence.

And to all the folks who are saying "I don't like reading ebooks, therefore they're crap," just remember that different folks have different preferences. Personally, for a long time I've read more on the screen of my Psion than I do on paper. I find that once you get into a story, you become less aware of the medium (just as you don't have to stop and think about turning the pages of a dead-tree book). The backlight means I don't have to have good lighting, and can even read in the dark! And provided you pick a suitable font, I find it easy enough on the eyes. Another advantage is that I always have my library with me. (About 50MB of books.) I don't need to carry my current book with me, or plan ahead.

I'm not saying that they're for everyone, just don't assume that they're dying simply because you don't like them.

These limitations (and I know that not all Palm-style machines have them all, but it's a common impression) don't apply to all palmtops. Mine has a keyboard you can touch-type on; I've used it to write articles for publication, large applications, etc. It has a 640x240 screen that's plenty wide enough to read books, web pages, spreadsheets, etc. Its OS (EPOC, the forerunner of Symbian OS currently powering many mobile phones) is exceptionally stable -- apart from hardware failure, I don't think it's crashed once. Although I have a powerful desktop machine, I only connect to it for backups; everything I use my Psion for stays there, and I've never felt the need to sync with anything else. I have lots of powerful applications at my fingertips: office apps that can exchange files with Word and Excel, route planning/GPS, capable web browsers, a Doom engine and many other games, you name it.

People are often amazed by the things I've got to hand: the Concise Oxford Dictionary, Brewer's, Webster's, the Jargon File, and loads of similar reference works; three different Bible translations; MBs of fiction and other books; the core data from the IMDB, etc. Most of the time it's my only email client, and also my only Off-Line Reader for the CIX BBS, holding well over 100,000 messages -- both connecting via my mobile phone as well as land lines. It has Java, Perl, Python, and also a powerful built-in language called OPL (recently open-sourced); and it's possible to do full-scale development on it (I know coz I'm co-author of the OLR mentioned before). It uses standard TrueType &c fonts, displays PDFs, connects with FTP and telnet, plays back MP3s, and loads more. In short, it's a fully-fledged, powerful computer in its own right.

I mention all this not to show off (well, maybe just a bit :) but to show that there's much more to pocket computers than most people think. (Lots of folks, especially in the USA, have never heard of Psions, which is a shame. Although they're no longer made, second-hand ones are highly sought-after.) And yet most people still think of a palmtop as something just for looking at a few agenda entries, checking a few addresses, and playing a few games.

If that's all you think a PDA is good for, then no wonder people think you can squeeze it all onto a phone! But for those of us who really use our palmtops, this seems a waste, a travesty of what mobile computing could be.

OTOH, maybe things aren't so depressing. It's possible that once all those simple PDA functions have been transferred to phones, that there will be room for some market differentiation, and that more powerful palmtops might become more popular. When Psion pulled out of the consumer market, their message was effectively "everyone wants Palms; too few people want something more powerful". Maybe if all of those light users move onto something even smaller (in every respect), there will be enough of us left for it to be worth making powerful pocket computers again.

Well, I can hope...

I'm striken by the things that usually strikes me as I look at gizmos that has a 'keyboard-look-a-like-input-thingy' - why do so many people designing such gizoms where text entry is important insist of laying out the 'keyboard' like "A B C D E etc"? I mean, come on people, Psion has shown us that is is easy to put in a QWERTY-layout keyboard (or DOVRAK, if you prefer) on a handheld device. For me, and I have tried a handfull of small formfactor keyboards, you can't get better in a small package than the Series5mx. Even the old Series3 looks to have a better keyboard than this new gizmo the UPS will start using.

I know, I'm ranting a bit, but it is something I feel is important; but then, I prefer using the keyboard over the mouse most days to move about on the computer.

#1 the Zaurus is a glorified alarm clock as well. That is really one of the best PDA features.

you have the stealth kb to make quick notes and such.

I will never buy another laptop since these gizmos do 90% of the job and are much more portable.

My advice is: pick a laptop or pick a PDA. Make sure that either of them does their respective job well. Don't expect your PDA to be a laptop, and don't expect your laptop to be small enough to put in your pocket (yet!).

I reject your advice. I carry a Psion 5MX everywhere with me. It's like a PDA, only it's got a proper keyboard. Which means I can take notes and write documents on it. This is a most valuable feature, since it means I can leave my Laptop behind for nearly all meetings etc.

The fact that it's got perl5, email connectivity, a Spectrum emulator, web browser, etc also is just a complete bonus. The 20hr battery life isn't bad either. However, it is 3 years old and I'm worried about the clamshell screen giving in again so I'm looking for a replacement.

So, to refute your advice: I am looking for a device with a keyboard that I can put in a shirt pocket (and I don't mind looking like a nerd with a kingsize pocket protector to do so), that I can take notes on, and that ideally has a 2 day (~4-5 hrs) battery life. Running Linux isn't a necessary (I've gotten used to EPOC too), but definitely a plus.

And yes, I do make rather good use of it. As well as the usual agenda/address book/notepad/games, I can do all my email on it (via mobile phone when not at home), route planning and GPS mapping, along with coding in Perl, Java, and its own built-in language; and play games like Infocom adventures, crosswords, and even a Doom engine; plus it has several hundred MBs of books, TomeRaider files and other reference works like the IMDB. I can view PDFs and pictures, handle zip files, and use FTP and Opera. But my most-used app is an off-line reader (OLR) for the CIX BBS, which I use to download and read messages and compose and upload replies - in my case, several hundred messages per day, maintaining a messagebase of around 60MB. (Disclaimer: I'm a co-author.) And all this with a touch-typeable keyboard and battery life of 20 hours or so.

(* It's a shame more people didn't realise their full potential, or they'd still be making them... :( )

I could do much of that on my desktop machine, but the convenience and time-saving of having it all with me on the train, on holiday, or just out and about, is something I couldn't be without.

So, just a status symbol for me? Don't think so :)

Not bad in other respects (size, speed, storage, Bluetooth, USB). If it runs something other than Windows, that's good too. I'm not sure that portable HDs are the way to go, though; flash technology is getting bigger all the time, and gives greater speed for much less power.

Ah. You mean like the Psion Series 7, which has been around for years. Or if that's too large, the Psion Series 5mx, which is also getting on in age. Or the Revo, which is teeny-tiny.

These are good for way more than basic text typing and email. They're full-fledged computers, with an awesome scripting language for end-users, and a lot of available applications. Battery life is long, keyboard is useable, screen display is great, built like a tank. Everything you could want...

...except that Psion pretty much failed to market them. Buggers.

Yes, Linux support for Epoc devices is abysmal at the moment. Hopefully SyncML will help with this, though.

The lack of available synchronization options between Linux software and a Psion PDA is why I've considered switching my trusty Psion Series 5mx to a Palm.

Luckily, the is at least some information for Epoc-Linux interoperability on http://5-tux.ifrance.com/5-tux/. It is in French, though.

--

Why? Because Digital GSM mobile (cell) phone coverage in Australia is very, very good. Even in remote areas. Just imagine it, I'm 8 hours from Sydney, eating red dust, 1 hour from the nearest electrical outlet, and I feel like whipping my Psion out to send an e-mail to the other side of the world, or even ordering a book to my house at Amazon.com. And I can do this. It's possible. I don't know about you people, but that really excites me. Being in touch where-ever you are.

It's still in it's infancy. For example, GSM Data communications are limited to 9.6 Kbps but that's still good for chat and sending e-mail. I'm satisfied to know I have the oppurtunity to surf the Web if I really really need to, as there is an Opera browser on my 5mx. And I have also purchased a travel modem, which allows me to connect at 56 Kbps through a normal landline.

I would really ditch my PC if it weren't for one or two things that I can't do on my Psion (and there's not much you can't do, just do a search for EPOC or Psion on google, and you'll see).

So yes, I think even though it's just starting up, it's really going to take off soon. I just think the oppurtunities are really exciting, and I'm glad to live in a time like this!

Cheers,
Daniel.

--

Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511

Yes, it's bigger, heavier and takes more power, Surprising how little you notice any of them, though, when you get to play with one. I now have a keyboard so I can stick work on it and write essays (or whatever) _anywhere_. Try doing that with Graffiti and you'll go mad quickly. I did. Yes, you can do that with laptops, but they're far bigger, heavier and more expensive - and don't boot up in a sensible time. This works beautifully for working away from home.

Also, you have a nice OS. EPOC32 is a nice thing to use, really.

All in all, it's just better. Far less a toy and far more a proper computer.

Psion Series 5 MX

The PDA platform is EPOC, as used in the popular Psion Series 5/5mx machines, although the UI is heavily streamlined. (For a start, there's obviously no keyboard.)

I've played with an R380 - it's very neat, if you want the all-in-one solution, but the unit is not quite powerful enough as a stand-alone PDA for me (it's about Palm-level, not Psion-level), so I prefer a full PDA plus a really small phone. That way you can talk and read/type at the same time.

It looks cool, but with the exception of hideously overpriced software, I'm very happy with my Psion Series 5mx. 16 meg, flash slot, IR port, serial port, and a keyboard (doesn't come with anything like graffiti, but Scribble works fairly well and it's free). It works fine using my cell phone as a modem or even a regular external modem.
(Side note: Can palms do this as well? I know about hooking them up to GPS with serial cables).

Chris the MathFreak

It's easy to write EPOC off, as its share of the PDA market is still pretty small (although it's quite high in the UK), but its inclusion in smartphones from later on this year could well see it being widely-adopted at that end of the market, with consequent "sudden" demand for compatible PDAs...

The Psion 5Mx is one example of a pen operated Psion product. The Psion series 7 is a little bigger, but also has a touch screen.

See also Psion's own press release and website for the 5mx.

Regards, Ralph.