By Ray Cheshire
Why lose the Palm device in favor of a Pocket PC? A good question, and no doubt one that's going to be debated for some time. For me, it wasn't a simple choice. I needed some time to think my decision through. I have to have complete trust in a product before I'll endorse it to anyone.
An alarming deficiency
Palm devices contain the whole workings of life. From contacts to class lists to diaries, it was all there. Yet mine was losing favor. I was missing alarms. Not because I'm deaf but because the things are so damned quiet. I used to own some Psion machines, and they were loud. Even the humble Siena could muster an alarm of sorts. The Psion 3c and Psion S5 had glorious alarms but were a little bulky. I'd learned Graffiti and had become quite competent at it, but I was missing the added functionality of the Psion machines, namely, word-processing and spreadsheets.
In search of something more
Yes, the Palm device was simple, and yes it was intuitive; however, it was time for more. Unfortunately the world of Palm didn't offer a decent upgrade path for the Palm IIIx. I could go slimmer with the Palm Vx or color with the Palm IIIc. Yet both of these are expensive options that offer no increase in functionality. The Palm VII will soon be released in Europe, yet even that offers nothing more than some very basic browsing that a WAP phone could supply a lot more cheaply and with the added bonus of being a phone.
No, I wanted something more, and I decided to check out the options. Previously, I'd had a Psion S5, and I regard the EPOC 32 OS to be one of the best. But the Psion S5mx is a bulky device, so I looked at the Revo. I liked it. In fact, I liked it a lot, but the keyboard isn't a patch on the Psion S5's. Also while the screen is okay, it's not nearly what I expect of a Psion machine.
The search ends with the Pocket PC
This led to my wandering over to the Pocket PC stand. These machines aren't well promoted in this country, unlike the Palm device, which seems to get all the best places on the shelves. I played with the ones on display. The Casio E-115 has a gorgeous screen but is a little bit of a Billy Bunter, while the HP Jornada 545 just looks amazingly cool and functional. I'm not being shallow here.
The HP Jornada 545 could show Nokia a thing or two. This is one very stylish machine. The real killer for me though, apart from all the groovy software, was the metal casing and the flip lid (rather like the one on my old Palm IIIx). Call me a Trekkie if you will, but I like this particular flip lid. It inspires confidence and lends the machine an air of dignity that the brash iPAQ couldn't nearly muster. Yes, I even like the idea of incorporating the stylus in the flip lid. This reduces the need for increasing the real estate of the mother unit.
