[H-GEN] Hand Held Computers

[A Bruce in the Land of the Bruces]

On Tue, 9 Dec 1997, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Dec 1997, Campbell Pool wrote:
> > I am interested in purchasing a handheld computer.  After doing support 
> > on a wince configuration, i think i want to stay "out of bills bed!"

You think thats bad, try configuring a Nokia 9000 to dial up .. without
seeing the unit in question.

> > does anyone have any experience/suggestions/url's/two cents, as far as 
> > hardware, os, accesories, etc.
> 
> PalmPilot? <http://www.palm.com/> ? (also comp.sys.palmtops.pilot)
> OTOH, it's screen's very small, it's not a real computer by any means,
> and it doesn't have all that much memory (512k to 3MB).

And demands that you learn its scrawl rather than learn your handwriting.
Ok if all you want is a pocketable smart organiser.

> A Newton's your other big option, which is pretty much strong where
> the Pilot's weak, and weak where the Pilot's strong. Bigger screen,
> and you can actually do stuff on it, but not the greatest battery 
> life, and it doesn't fit in your pocket. 

Ah, but how bigsss is its pocketssss?

(the MessagePad 2000 series is a bit smaller than an A5 notebook, so its
 definitely not a standard pocket size.  Works ok if you want to carry a
 small bag around or large belt pouch.  For its power, its quite small
 enough ;) )

> Bruce?

Battery life depens on what you shove in it.  The standard Newton
rechargeable thing will last about 4 weeks (recharge after two is a good
thing ;).  4 Akalines will last about 2 weeks (nice bright screen) while 
lithiums will last about 3 weeks.  But nice and light. (50g vs 200g for
akalines or similar).

Of course, the Palmpilot is $500 odd, the Newton $1200 odd.  Both are
basically glorified organisers, both are programmable devices (the Newton
more so) and both support handwriting (the Palmpilot its own, the Newton,
yours).

The Newton also accepts most standard PCMCIA cards, and has sound input
and output.

--==--
Bruce.

Just waiting for the Mobile Phone PCMCIA card so can use the Newton as a
phone ;)

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