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Agenda VR3 Review
jlam writes: "Brighthand has a review on the Linux based Agenda VR3 PDA. Sounds like the product was rushed out the door after being delayed almost a year, has performance problems, and is depending on the talents of the open-source community to help fix the problems. The review has screenshots of the PDA including the boot up screens." I've also been using mine. I agree with parts of the above review -- there's some definite problems with the device. However, from what I've heard there's a device with a 130 MIPs chip, rechargeable battery and some other goodies in development right now. The additional speed will help out, as the current device has speed issues. Summary: It's got definite potential, but I think it came out a bit too early.
That's a cheap shot. They're being sued by Milberg Weiss, who with an ounce of research you'd find sue any company whose stock drops a lot. The scam, of course, is "give us some settlement money or we'll trash your company in the press and drag you through court for the next five years. Past victims include VA Linux, amongst many, many others.
Fun links: Milberg Weiss nailed for $45M
... or try searching for "Bill Lerach" on Google.
An article titled "Bloodsucking Scumbag"
For PDAs the bottom line is the applications, battery life and form factor. What operating system it's running comes in a long distance behind these biggies. The OS certainly plays a part in all of the above things, but the end user simply doesn't care that much. Get the apps running right and it could be running CrapOS 0.1 for all the user cares.
Personally I think Linux has the potential to be great for PDAs but maybe not with the Agenda.
I have no intention of buying this first-generation device - I learned my lesson with a first gen WinCE device (still very usable for taking notes and very basic spreadsheets, I'm glad I only paid $100 for it), and my mp3 CD player. However, it's unfair to simply denounce this as a horrible product when the reviewer has nothing more than a pre-production release. I imagine he got something that was put together between a few days to a few weeks ago. A lot of changes can happen in the one month previous to a release.
I eagerly await a review after the April 23rd ship date - I want to see the potential this thing really has. I will probably seriously consider a second generation device, but it must have usability as well as the "toy" factor, including these features:
- lithium ion battery with decent (10-20 hour) lifetime. This is one of my largest considerations because otherwise I have to plunk down more money for less-convenient NiMH batteries (which I use in my current PDA and digital camera).
- Slightly larger screen. This agenda has a 3" x 2 1/8" screen (interesting that a Hong Kong company uses English units, or so it seems). This is just too darned small, like the Palms, for my liking (my WinCE palmtop has a wonderful 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" - unreasonable for handhelds, I know.) Also, reverse backlighting annoys me, there should be a switch to make it normal like the Palm hack.
- A set of physical scroll buttons (up and down) is essential; I like to read on my palmtops, and to tap to scroll down too much of a pain.
- The applications should run about as fast as Palms - after all, the Palms have less than a 30 Mhz processor. This is the true test of how fast Linux can be on slower devices.
- expansion cards for storage and wireless networking are essential - modems are practically useless (at least to me), but a wireless network card would give me access in many buildings I occupy.
We'll just have to see how it goes.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
I can just see the letter to customers now...
Dear Customer: Thanks for buying our PDA. Sorry it is a very buggy. But you can volunteer to fix it for us!
sulli
RTFJ.