You're right. Casio has successfully managed to alienate a huge potential market share due to their decision on the upgrades to PocketPC. Casio has a problem that's plagued them since the 80s: Good quality products originate in the Japanese market and then are brought over here. THings happen, though, and you want customer service at your access when they do. Casio's US customer service is some of the worst I've ever seen.
If you do further research, you will find that other companies who produce CE-based PDA units are offering upgrades at reasonable rates. I don't have actual monetary amounts at hand right now, but costs run in the range of anywhere from a free downloadable upgrade to ~$50 and on up to $99 in one instance.
I'm sorry you've been burned by Casio. I know I was and have promptly sold off my E-100 in disgust at what they've done. Don't blame Microsoft for this decision though. The manufacturer is the culprit.
To all of you MS naysayers (i.e. 95% of anyone who posts to Slashdot), I suggest that you don't be so quick to slam CE or PocketPC devices simply b/c it being a product powered by a Microsoft OS. WinCE 1.xx had some serious problems, and Microsoft has learned from these problems and has made what I feel is the most stable OS in their product line. Granted, you need a good bit more fault tolerance for an embedded OS, but it's a good combination of ergonomics and actual function. And as for battery power, Casio has recently announced the development of a rechageable battery that will last for 76 hours on their E-11x and E-5xx lines of PDAs. I'm not stating that one OS/platform/etc. in the PDA market is greater than the other. I do think, however, that many of you will be surprised by what PocketPC devices are offering. Here is a good place to start: http://www.wincecity.com - crisis
Slashdot Mirror
You're right. Casio has successfully managed to alienate a huge potential market share due to their decision on the upgrades to PocketPC. Casio has a problem that's plagued them since the 80s: Good quality products originate in the Japanese market and then are brought over here. THings happen, though, and you want customer service at your access when they do. Casio's US customer service is some of the worst I've ever seen.
If you do further research, you will find that other companies who produce CE-based PDA units are offering upgrades at reasonable rates. I don't have actual monetary amounts at hand right now, but costs run in the range of anywhere from a free downloadable upgrade to ~$50 and on up to $99 in one instance.
I'm sorry you've been burned by Casio. I know I was and have promptly sold off my E-100 in disgust at what they've done. Don't blame Microsoft for this decision though. The manufacturer is the culprit.
crisis
To all of you MS naysayers (i.e. 95% of anyone who posts to Slashdot), I suggest that you don't be so quick to slam CE or PocketPC devices simply b/c it being a product powered by a Microsoft OS. WinCE 1.xx had some serious problems, and Microsoft has learned from these problems and has made what I feel is the most stable OS in their product line. Granted, you need a good bit more fault tolerance for an embedded OS, but it's a good combination of ergonomics and actual function. And as for battery power, Casio has recently announced the development of a rechageable battery that will last for 76 hours on their E-11x and E-5xx lines of PDAs. I'm not stating that one OS/platform/etc. in the PDA market is greater than the other. I do think, however, that many of you will be surprised by what PocketPC devices are offering. Here is a good place to start: http://www.wincecity.com - crisis