Slashdot Mirror

I owned a RIM 950 for at least three years and haven't stopped looking for a similar gadget since mine broke. All I want is a device that allows me to (i) thumb-type short (but frequent) notes and (ii) allows me to somehow transfer those notes into a PC (preferably using Linux). I'm not really looking for a high-end, camera-&-color-display-included type cell phone: just a simple, portable, rugged gadget in which I can thumb-type and then copy that stuff onto my laptop (rs232, usb, ir, etc all being ok). Is there anything like this out there (other than aging psions)?

they tend to break every one, two years (the display cable is the culprit) but there are companies who still repair them.

it's a pity that psion has such a lousy management, a psion 6 with bluetooth, wlan and a color screen would be a dream machine..

PAT

"Imagine a portable device that runs on 4 AA batteries & runs for 20 hours+, has an address book, a date book, a notepad-like app, a built-in modem, a full-travel keyboard, a terminal application, even the ability to connect to a modern Windows or Linux based PC & transfer files. Sounds great doesn't it? But in 1983? No way I hear you say! What are you smoking son?"

I couple that with a PDA screen protector on the GBA SP screen. The GBA closes to protect the screen, but I had some old protectors laying around and they work great for this. Just cut them to size. You could do the same thing with the DS; if you don't have any, look on ebay for a discontinued PDA's protectors. You pay more in shipping then the actual item, but its still less than $5.

Brando makes IMHO the best PDA screen protections available : almost perfectly clear, washable, but somewhat difficult to apply (if you mind dust specks and air bubbles) (review). It is available for the Nintendo DS ($15, ouch). Shipping (HK to Europe) was very fast.

http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/hp200lx.html

Clamshell design, 2MB RAM, 3MB ROM. Ran DOS 5.0 on an 8086 processor. Used flash memory cards. It was basically a predecessor to the PDA's, but it had a full keyboard and ran a full DOS OS. You could even run ordinary dos programs on it by just copying them over (though the display was non-VGA).

Oh yeah, it would run for a week on two AA's.

This document is also 15 years old. Let's think about computing power available 15 years ago. Yes, there were computers more than powerful enough to do handle brute force decryption, not to mention more sophisiticated means. In terms of portability, however, there was nothing.

That's simply not true! A great example is the Tandy 100 portable computer. Introduced in 1983, it was basically about as powerful as other 8-bit computers. It was portable and ran on AA batteries. The cost was very reasonable; according to one site, the early models were about $800 to $1000 and they later dropped to about $500.

Yes, it would have been slow and annoying to use an old 8-bit computer like this for real cryptography. But not impossible. You could easily do RSA on it, if you restrict yourself to small keys, like 16-bit or something. I'm sure you could even do some symmetric crypto algorithm with reasonable speed. If you're using it to transmit military messages, what does it matter if it takes 10 minutes to encrypt 1 kilobyte?

The point isn't that you could do some kind of crypto that'd be unbreakable by today's standard. The point is that computer-assisted crypto would easily have been possible in the field 15 years ago if someone really wanted to do it. And that's using off-the-shelf parts that were available at your local shopping mall. If, say, the US military wanted to design a portable device for electronic crypto in the field, they could've built a box with 50 Motorola 68020 processors running in parallel if they'd really wanted. Or put the crypto algorithm straight into silicon -- that kind of thing is totally possible if you have a budget like the US military had in the 1980's...

There's a product along these lines I've been interested in checking out.

It's called the "MP-308 Car USB / FM Transmitter", Here's a review of it.

Strangely enough, it seems to be the only Car MP3 player out there that takes a USB card - the discontinued "EMPEG" used to have such an input, but it's hard to get now. I've been wanting to use a nice cheap USB stick instead of CDs for the sheer convenience of popping it into the car and listening with an interface that's much more casual than CDs. Instead of plugging into the car's existing audio system, it works by sending out a short-range FM signal across the 87.7-88.7 dial (you select which subrange). That makes setup easy (so long as you have a good radio in the car), but I can't help but wonder how many radio markets have that FM signal open at that range, and what interference this would have with nearby cars. Fortunately, the device is fairly cheap to experiment with - you can find it for around $50 on pricewatch.

Ryan Fenton

Get a Kill-a-Watt meter and you can find out exactly how much it uses. You can also monitor the line voltage and/or check the cumulative power usage over time. They're only about $30 at your local Radio Shack or Froogle for them. My big Athlon64 3400+ with three drives uses about 250W when idle, not counting the monitor. When it boots it peaks around 310 watts.

I offer both agreement and an answer. I use an 4.5 year old Psion 5mx for word processing (taking notes at conferences, on airplanes, in line at the bank, etc.) spreadsheets, small databases, date & time around the globe, quickie calculations, scheduled reminders, and an occasional game. Its got a whopping 36 MHz processor, 16 MB RAM, and a 16-gray B/W half-VGA screen but that is all it really needs for these tasks. It is totally fantastic as a 12 oz. ultralite laptop because it does all the basic "office" type tasks and gets 20 to 35 hours per pair of AAs.

Like you, I don't see the need for faster/better (especially at the expense of battery life), although I can understand the attraction to wireless web access.

I found a rather usful device that call tell you how much enegry each of your devices is using.

It's called a Kill-a-Watt.

Here is a link to a review:

Kill-a-Watt

Wiebetech had a Firewire Keychain flash firewire drive back in 2002.

Check it out:

• Firewire Keychain Review
• Firewire Keychain
• Wiebetech Announced Firewire Keychain
• WiebeTECH 1GB FireWire KeyChain review

I don't get why ANY pda EVER has not had a battery backup, but that is just me.

In the past, I used a Palm III, and backed up critical data to the unused portion of Flash where the 'ROM' resides.

www.the-gadgeteer.com/t9-review.html

Or first list on a Google search:
Palm Desktop Replacement Comparison Chart

Alex.

...when recording from an analog signal that was reconstructed from a digital one?

i.e. I could take my XM satellite radio (if I had one) such as the XM PCR Radio (as reviewed by another site other than the XM Radio one). I could plug the output into the input of my sound card... and capture the audio going in. The article I linked to above mentions the fringe benefit of being able to record from the XM PCR Radio using a third party program, thanks to the fact that the radio is designed to be plugged into the input of a computer sound card.

Of course there could be local noise which the analog signal would be susceptible to, and the sound card needs to be good enough to re-encode the decoded digital signal...

But really... can the degradation be that great... and how good are even the 'cheap and nasty' sound cards at capturing and re-coding audio?

Because as countless others have posted, people have been taping the radio for years. And right now, the technology exists (and is likely to continue to exist for some time yet) that allows us to circumvent any so-called digital protection by going through the analog chain.

Or does it really require a very high end PC with the best sound card around? Personally, I think not, because I think that technology has advanced far enough for even 'bog standard' PC equipment that is sold even in places like Wal-Mart have just about enough computer power and sound card hardware to create a CD-quality digital recording from a suitable analog input. But then I am not an audiophile, so I cannot state this as absolute fact... and would appreciate any clarification.

Thanks, Mark.

So, what you're saying is that you want an Apple eMate 300. Sadly, the Newton met it's demise many years ago.

Sounds like what you need is a Trash-80. It'll take notes and it's ancient enough that you really won't feel like your using a computer! Also, it's not flash enough to attract attention when travelling. A quick homemade serial interface when you get home and you're formatting in Word before you know it!!

Here

You might want to take a look at the Zaurus c700.

What a nice bit of FUD. Go try any modern PPC device out in the stores, and you will be quite impressed with how much it has improved.

It is no longer Windows CE. I have seen older CE devices, and your complaints about them are fairly accurate. PPC2003 is quite improved.

Equating a Casio E-100 to a HP h4155 is like equating a Palm III to a Tungsten T3

What a nice bit of FUD. Go try any modern PPC device out in the stores, and you will be quite impressed with how much it has improved.

It is no longer Windows CE. I have seen older CE devices, and your complaints about them are fairly accurate. PPC2003 is quite improved.

Equating a Casio E-100 to a HP h4155 is like equating a Palm III to a Tungsten T3

The Sega Game Gear also used a Z80. Yeah, I still have mine, but it eats batteries for breakfast ;-)

Reading the specs, nothing jumped out at me as being new when you compare it to the excellent C760. Am I missing something?

Product Specs

Review #1

Review #2

My real goal right now is to purchase a C760...

IMO this is the Porsche of Linux PDAs.

The form factor of this is very unique in the PDA space.

My NewsMonster RSS aggregator already runs on my SL-5500 and the enhanced res and size of the C760 should really make for a great newspaper/memex style device.

NewsMonster supports the ability to export an article for PDA readability and strips out all non-format compliant content (no tables, images, etc.) All you're left with is just the raw article.

This would be my dream device... add a Sprint CF card with 128k wireless data and I will be in heaven!

Not that I don't like this new Zaurus... it's just too small for me.

Kevin

It works, eh? Well, the iPod does not meet my definition of "portability." So just what do I have to do to play it on a device like this or this? They allows me to play umpteen hours of digital audio in my existing auto cassette player, which is pretty much the only place I have much opportunity to listen to music. iPod indeed.

..if you speak japanese. ;)

The Sharp Zaurus C760, currently available in just a few places.

Disclaimer: IAAGF (I am a geeky female)

You bring up an interesting point about Technology nowadays. So many reviews of new gadgets are hideously male-dominated. The comparison that irks me is the "fits comfortably in a shirt pocket" standard that is somehow being held to all MP3 players, cell phones and PDAs. Frankly, I don't know many women that keep PDAs, Cell phones, or mp3 players in their pockets. Women don't mind carrying purses that hold their gadgets. And when you're stuffing your gadgets into a purse, the size doesn't much matter, but the weight does.

And the thumboards... I would think they would give large-handed people issues, but all keyboards, thumboards, and other sorts of button-based input devices give hell to women with longer fingernails. Even if a woman's nails aren't raptor-claw length, the slightest length will fudge things up.

Well I guess this is why I like Julie and Judie at The Gadgeteer so much. They strive to have a mix of male and female reviewers and they make sure not to laden their reviews with sexist bias.

I figure that portrait mode is better for the non-CLI crowd (e.g. windows users) and landscape is better for CLI users. This looks perfect, if a little big. SSH from anywhere!

See the gadgeterr review to get an idea of the real size. http://sharp-world.com/corporate/news/021112.html
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/sharp-c700-review.htm l

You are most likely thinking of this beastie. It was read-only, and came in two versions: Palm OS and Pocket PC. It was meant as a quick way to access read-only data at times when it was inconvenient to whip out your PDA.

Kinda flopped at retail, from what I remember, mostly due to its' massive wrist real-estate and hard to push buttons.

How about MyFi as a killer feature? Broadcast your music to an available fm station.

Well, having it built in is nice, but separate devices that connect to any headphone jack and broadcast FM have been available for a while. So simply building it into the device is nice, but isn't really a killer feature. Here's a review of one of them.

$700 for an english translated version at Dynamism

$550 for a japanese version at conics but it's really easy to change the locale to english!)

A review at the gadgeteer

Today, go to dynamism.com for under 2 pound computers.

Beyond that, stop bullshitting yourself--you are clearly completely out of touch.

It's all a trade-off between power, size, and cost. And it doesn't look like Vulcan has any better technology than anybody else.

Get a Sharp C700, its tiny, runs Linux, and at least looks like a laptop.

Amazing new technology allows an object in space to be rotated across TWO AXES!!!
Scientists are still baffled by this phenomena, but that hasnt stopped industrious technology companies from jumping at the chance to take advantage of this yet unexplained technology. The first occurance of this type of thing actually happened about 3^-190,000th of a second after the universe was formed, as the first electron orbited the first proton while the molecule itself spun in a completely different direction. Still physicists struggle with the concept: If one axis is perpendicular to the other, could this even lead to being able to Turn something over without disconnecting it from its spine?

Ummm, please point out the big color LCD in this image.

I'd love one of these.

The first would be the lack of tactile response. After all, your desktop or any other hard surface would become uncomfortable after just a few minutes IMHO.

The second would be the lack of any position designators - i.e. the 'f' and 'j' keys. Most 10 fingered typers probably don't even think about it anymore, but it's very easy to lose your place without them. I suspect this would become very annoying if taking notes in class during a lecture or in a business meeting.

As far as a good portable keyboard for a PDA, my money is on the new Stowaway XT. It's been getting really good reviews/previews.

Anyone been lucky enough to play around with one yet?

... collecting dust in my SeveranceBox(tm) :p

dude, you don't even know if small keyboards exist (they do), yet somehow you know they're not comfortable. I hope you put more effort into forming your other opinions...

(Yep, I've used a tiny keyboard and gotten quite good at it)

I did a search and that looks like a really sweet machine. Being able to use CF for storing medical programs and stuff would be really helpful for me, as my IIIxe's 8 megs just isn't enough. Do you own one? Any comments?

I could see myself buying a Dana. I can see Danas selling here and there. But I don't expect the Dana to be a monster hit.

You can take a Palm PDA and plug it into a keyboard. I have a Visor Deluxe and a GoType, and I do this. But when you do this, you only have a 160x160 display, and you have to be a bit careful with it because it's easy to knock the PDA free from the keyboard.

The Dana gives you a wider screen, good for looking at lots of text or perhaps column data such as a spreadsheet. It's all one unit, and it looks tough. That means you can grab it with one hand and walk around with it casually, or fling it into a backpack to take it to the library. (I hope the keys don't clack too loudly!)

Take a look at the USB ports. Looks like one is an A connector and one is a B! You can hang USB devices off this, such as a printer, and use them. Or you can plug this into a USB port, probably to hotsync your data with your desktop computer. Oh yes.

Now all it needs is a good way to hook it up to a phone line or a cell phone. You ought to be able to get a USB external modem working with this, and you might be able to get a cable that will let a Startac work with it for data. With 560x160 resolution, you can have an 80 column display, although 24 lines would be pretty cramped, but anyway you should be able to use this thing as a remote terminal.

I remember that Apple used to sell a small gadget something like this; they called it an eMate. Schools used to buy eMates. Any school that would buy an eMate would buy one of these; it can do more, it should be equally tough or tougher, and it is half the price the eMate used to be.

steveha

I don't have a case yet (only had it for 2 weeks) but what about this: http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/drpalm-clie-pdaprotec tor-review.html. Targus also has some soft leather cases that work with the Clie. I found those 2 in about 5 minutes of surfing, so I'd guess there are some other options too.

There is a review of the Bit Char-G here.

It includes some better images.

It's called the T9 keyboard I think. There was a PDA way back called the HP Avigo that used it. It was never very popular on that PDA, and eventually somebody wrote a pen-based input method for it. IMHO it's great for cellphones because of the infrequent need to input lots of text. On a PDA, I prefer either handwriting recognition or an add-on keyboard.

The Gadgeteer did a review of a T9 product. Look at the table with their speed results.

Check out this review. Actual model in hand, retail purchased. Buttons fixed as well as screen dust bunnies addressed.

Apple made a version of their Newton called the eMate. It came in five familiar colors...

There's a lot of information on the web, easily accessible with Google, but here's some for starters:
eMate 300 Review
MessagePad 2100, 2000 and eMate

You can still find these pretty often on eBay.

The device itself doesn't need to be ultra sturdy or water-tight. Instead, you can have a normal device protected with something that can withstand a nasty environment, including coffee, Mountain Dew, and CmdrTaco flatulence. While the PDA-Pak isn't the perfect answer, it should get you thinking.

Being a Fitaly user for about six months, I can now tap more than 50 wpm. However that wpm rate only applies when I am typing a lot of text and do not have my Stowaway with me.

From looking at the pictures provided, there are a few reasons temping me to learn a new key layout and switch to ATOMIK. First of all, IBM has managed to fit the number pad into their basic keypad. Whereas on Fitaly you would need to press the little '123' button to get a number pad. This may not seem like a big deal, however I do find a lot of the time I dont even use the '123' button, but just write the numbers in Graffiti (I use Fitaly virtual keyboard so the Graffiti area is still available).

Secondly, rarely used keys such as 'w, x, y, z' are placed together on the bottom right of the keypad, which is easy to remember and find. Fitaly on the other hand, because they map their keys based on frequency of individual keys (rather than pair of keys) used, the letters 'w, x, y, z' are found scattered around the outer border of the keypad. The placement of these keys on Fitaly slow me down greatly, and it seems ATOMIK may have found a better solution.

Now I know I may sound like I am strongly in favor of IBMs ATOMIK, but its only because I have used Fitaly for so long and know all the advantages/disadvanges of it. I do believe it is possible for ATOMIK to take over Fitaly as the replacement keypad of choice on handheld devices, but I wront really know until I give it a try. Nonetheless, the design looks very promising.

Until I can plug my PDA into my brainpan, I'll stick with transcriber on the ipaq and the targus stowaway keyboard for heavy text entry..