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Which Handheld for In-Field Service Work?
got_lost asks: "I'm trying to work out a mobile (read sub-notebook) solution for field servicing Cisco kit. I looked at notebooks but the cost/weight/battery use just outweighs the features I need. The possibles are Psion Revo & Palm or Visor + Keyboard. I haven't really played enough with these before to know their capabilities. I've also heard about a serial card + TRGpro PDA combo. Anyone care to comment?
I guess I need suggestions for a portable (Palm/Visor/Psion) solution that allows serial comms. Ideally the solution would not involve the FS staff lugging a HotSync cradle around . I hope this makes sense and welcome all advice on this topic."
I bought one of these to replace my aging HP95LX, and although it isn't as cool as the 95, it's still the best of all worlds. It wont fit in your pocket easily (you'll have size issues with the palm/keyboard combo) but it is more "full-featured" than most other palmtop/handhelds I've seen.
It's got a 640x240 screen (half VGA) that does 64K colours (recent bios update over the factory 256 colours),the keyboard is large enough - not perfect, but survivable, the internal modem reliably does 42k to my servers, it has a bulky com adapter cable - I do the cisco thing too and would love to build a custom cable that is smaller and more lightweight than the current big cable, adapter, and powderblue RJ cable setup)
I have a 32MB CF card that gives me enough storage for about an hour of low quality mp3 storage - with no headphone jack you're limited to the 3/4" peizo speaker - so quality isn't a concern - but it's loud enough to enjoy something other than fan noise when you're deep in a room full of racks.
It will not come with much useful software, but a VISA card can fix that quickly - you'll need all the usual network utilities. On an interesting point, VNC is available for it and comes at a lovely price point!
I've filled the PCMCIA card slot with a cheap DLink 10baseT card which gets me functional on either a tp or coax network - useful to do diagnosis from ether as well as serial.
The battery life is substantial! With normal operations, you can really expect 7 hours life out of it - running the network card will cut it back to about 5, but I'm sure that a more expensive low power ether card would make a difference there. There is also an extended life battery that claims (and I believe it) 21 hours of use.
While on the road, I connect to the net either with a cable into my Qualcomm 2760 or with a RJ11 into my truck's analog cell phone.
All in all, it's a workable combination, and has freed me for the most part from a laptop. I still carry my Thinkpad, and I'm getting very very close to dumping the desktop machine out of my life - I'd miss the 20" sony glass, but it still might happen.
If you've got questions, ask and I'll do my best to answer!
M