.KEYWORD handera0701
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE There’s lots to love about the HandEra 330
.FEATURE
.SPOTLIGHT FIGALT cover.gif
.SUMMARY Senior Technical Editor Claire Pieterek has found her next new PDA, and it’s the Palm OS-based HandEra 330. Find out why this cutting edge handheld has won over our toughest reviewer in this detailed review.
.AUTHOR Claire Pieterek
It’s finally time for me to switch. My next Palm OS handheld will be the HandEra 330. Although it’s not small, nor does it have color, the HandEra 330, pictured in Figure A, sure has a lot of neat features. I haven’t been this excited about reviewing a new Palm OS handheld in quite some time!
.FIGPAIR A The HandEra 330 is packed with cool features.
In many respects, the HandEra 330 is much like the Sony CLIE PEG-N710C. At 320×240 pixels, the HandEra 330 offers higher screen resolution than Palm’s standard 160×160 pixels. The HandEra 330 sports a jog dial, which makes it great for reading electronic documents. It’s also about the same size as the CLIE, using the Palm III series form factor.
My trusty Palm IIIx is the one I carried every day before I received the HandEra 330 for review, even though I currently own four other Palm handhelds. Although I do like my Palm V with its 8MB upgrade, I never got around to setting it up just like my Palm IIIx. I have to be able to synchronize at home and at work. I never got around to rewriting Palm’s or Sony’s setup.inf file to get USB synchronization to run on my work PC, which uses a version of Windows 95 that supports USB.
Another reason I really like my old Palm IIIx is the TRG xtra xtra Pro card. I like having over 3MB of flash memory at my disposal. I can store just about all of my crucial programs and data without worry or fear of a hard reset, and I have tons of room to spare.
But I digress.
.H1 Who is HandEra?
HandEra is the new name for the company formerly known as TRG Products, maker of software utilities like FlashPro (see my article, "How to get an extra 824K using FlashPro" in the May 1999 issue of PalmPower at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199905/flashpro001.html) and hardware products like the xtra xtra Pro card I just mentioned. They’ve been in the Palm add-on market for a long time.
.H1 All the best of the Palm IIIx
The HandEra 330 overcomes all of the reasons I haven’t stopped using my Palm IIIx. Unlike the CLIE and other new Palm OS handhelds, Handera chose to stick with the serial HotSync connector and replaceable batteries, as shown in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B The HandEra 330 uses replaceable batteries.
Even though the HandEra 330 takes four AAA batteries, it manages power extraordinarily well. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, a lot of writing, and a lot of beaming with the HandEra 330, and I’ve only had to change the batteries once in a month of use.
Personally, I like Handera’s decision. I find it much easier to carry a few spare batteries and a HotSync cable instead of a cradle and transformer. Of course, if you prefer a rechargeable solution, HandEra has thought of that too. You can replace the batteries with an optional rechargeable Lithium Ion battery pack.
Best of all, I can use all of the peripherals, cases, and accessories I’ve accumulated over the years. On that note, I fervently hope that Palm stays true to their word about standardizing on the Universal connector built into the Palm m500 series handhelds. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of buying new stuff all the time. Besides, there aren’t any travel chargers or adapters available right now that will let me connect a Palm m505 or a Clie to Palm III peripherals.
Plus, the AutoCF and Backup software included with the HandEra make it much easier to deal with external storage than the utilities provided with the Palm m505. I haven’t played with the CLIE PEG-N710C much yet, so I can’t comment on the utilities Sony provides, although perusal of the discussion boards and lists I frequent seems to indicate there are better third-party utilities available.
.H1 Two expansion slots
HandEra supports both a CF (CompactFlash) slot and a Secure Digital/MultiMediaCard slot, which is much preferable to Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick technology. I have a bunch of MultiMediaCards that came with an MP3 player I won, so I’m looking forward to recycling those, since I never did use that MP3 player much. Besides, the CF slot opens up a whole new range of possibilities. For example, a CF modem would allow me to connect to the Internet while using my Palm Portable Keyboard. Better still, a CF Ethernet card would just about let me ditch my laptop (too bad the drivers are for that other operating system). And, I can back all my stuff up to one of those 16MB MultiMediaCards I have, with plenty of room to spare. Having all these options is a good thing.
.H1 Your desires granted
HandEra has responded to a lot of comments I’ve seen on the Pilot mailing list by including a soft Graffiti area, higher screen resolution, screen rotation, louder alarms, voice recording, the ability to use an AC adapter, DTMF (Dual Tone Multi-Frequency) dialing of numbers stored in the Address Book, and a reset hole that doesn’t require unscrewing the stylus. They’ve also shown their attention to the concerns of users by getting rid of the springs in the battery compartment, keeping the stylus silo completely away from the display cable, returning to the classic PalmPilot-style backlight, and so on.
About the only thing not included in the package is a copy of FlashPack (at http://www.handera.com/products/cat-flashpack.asp). I surmise HandEra figures that utility is no longer needed in an environment where you have two different storage systems to use, both of which are nonvolatile and can go up to 128MB. I still want to put particular applications in Flash, like DateBk4 (at http://www.pimlicosoftware.com) and MultiMail Pro III (at http://www.actualsoft.com). Also, FlashPack provides a way to take a snapshot of the databases you specify and automatically back them up to Flash. If you’ve ever been stuck having to do a hard reset without having synchronized recently, FlashPack really comes in handy.
.H1 Reader’s delight
If you like to read or you need a lot of technical information in your pocket, you’ll love the HandEra 330. Just think how much you could carry by using a large CF plus Adobe’s Acrobat Reader for Palm OS (at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readerforpalm.html)! I’ve been reading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which is a single 1.1MB file. Instead of holding the computer in one hand and using the other to hit the down arrow, the HandEra 330’s jog dial enables you to page down quickly, while holding the computer in one hand. This is much less tiring, and it works well for even the most rapid page-turner. Obviously, if you rotate the screen and make the Graffiti area disappear, most people will end up using both hands.
In Figure C, you can see the conventional view of Gogol’s Taras Bulba. You’ll notice these screen shots are larger than normal to show off the great double-resolution. Also note how much room is created by minimizing the soft Graffiti area.
.FIGPAIR C The HandEra 330 has twice the resolution of other Palm OS handhelds.
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