Since I was fifteen or so I’ve had an on again, off again love affair with handheld devices.
My first love was the Palm VIIx.
It had a whopping 8 megabytes of RAM, with limited expandability, and a Motorola DragonBall processor. I used it to play simple games, keep track of contacts, have a remote control for every TV I encountered using the infrared port and also read ebooks. One or two at a time of course!
A year or two later I decided I wanted a newer device. I was looking at Sony Clies on eBay, and they looked impressive. A color screen?! Awesome! On the advice of Jordan though, I purchased an iPaq 3600.
The iPAQ had a 206mhz or 266mhz StrongARM CPU, 16mbytes of ROM, and 32mbytes of RAM. It also came with an expansion case or “sleeve” that the device slid into which added a compact flash slot for additional storage. I did a lot of creative hacking with this device. NES emulation with Pocket Nester, fragging in Quake, playing movies, and more. I even had a compact flash network card, and a compact flash modem. Once I used the dial-up modem to set it up as an apache webserver on the internet.
Another year or two later, the battery on my 3600 was failing. I think I looked into replacing it, but it just wasn’t worth it at that time. (This last December I actually changed a battery in a 3600 for my fiancee, but that’s a different post. I found one on eBay for only $15).
Searching and searching, I came across a Dell Axim X5 bundle with a LOT of extras. The price was right so I went for it.
The X5 had 32 megabytes of ROM, and 64 megabytes of RAM, as well as compact flash and secure digital expansion. It came with a 2.2gB MagicStor hard disk that due to a driver issue wouldn’t function with the Axim, so I ended up reselling it on eBay for about $150. (I paid $220 for the PDA with accessories!). Sadly by the time it got to Italy and the buyer someone had stolen it from the post.
I loved my X5. It had compact flash and secure digital expansion built in. I never used the SD, but the CF slot had a 256m card in it which was stuffed full of ebooks, music, movies, and NES games. This was an awesome handheld.
Sadly, it was not meant to be. One night I was working on my computer under my desk. When I crawled out I accidentally put my knee on the X5. The unit survived, but the LCD did not.
Since then I’ve done without a PDA for several years, although for a while I used an old school Palm Pilot. (Professional version with 512k ( ! ) of RAM!)
A few days ago while I was at Allan’s Jewelry and Loan with Natalie and her mother buying a ring for Natalie, I saw a Dell Axim X50v in a display case.
I had someone get it out for me so I could play with it and read the manual. The price tag was $169.99. I almost bought it then and there. I try to never make impulse purchases though. I went to the library with Natalie and priced them on eBay. I went back to Allan’s and told them on eBay they were in the $100-$120 range for the unit alone. They said they would sell it for $150. It had several accessories, and more important I just WANTED IT, so I decided to go for it.
This device is nearly perfect. A quick look at the specs: 624mhz Intel Processor, 128mbytes ROM, most of which is usable for nonvolatile storage, 64mbytes of RAM for program storage and execution space, Bluetooth, WiFi, Intel Graphics accelerator, super bright super sharp VGA screen (640×480).
The wireless internet has proved useful for staying caught up on my personal and work email. You can find open wireless access points in nearly any US city just wandering around. Libraries, universities, schools, etc all have open wireless access.
My biggest complaint so far is the lack of a scroll wheel or jog dial for reading ebooks, and the tiny buttons which are less than ideal for playing NES games like MegaMan and Super Mario Bros.
I’ll certainly be writing lots about cool Pocket PC software and hacks in the future, so stay tuned. My next planned purchase is a Compact Flash, Secure Digital, or Bluetooth GPS device to use with TomTom for Windows Mobile.
first post!!!1!!!11!