Woo-hoo, I can breathe!
Dec. 8th, 2002 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikNot quite over this thing yet, by my voice is mostly back, and my head feels much better. Lungs are still groggy, but they seem to be getting better.
Finally found a place that actually has the Zaurus in stock so I could go play with one... Unfortunately, it just confused the issue further. I don't particularly care for the Zaurus as a piece of hardware. The thumb keyboard is annoying, the cover that slides down from it feels cheap and flimsy. And I didn't have the oppotunity to play around with it's browsing capabilities (the big killer app for me in this is being able to hit the traffic page remotely.)
I like the general feel and layout of the software (though the preloaded text editor is crippled in annoying ways). The character recognition software is adequate -- but I don't think I'd want to use it for anything particularly long, which brings me back to the problem with the lack of a compatible keyboard. (On the other hand, It's looking more and more like I might want to do a wiring hack with whatever keyboard I get, for ergo considerations... And the wiring side of it isn't particularly difficult, though last I checked the drivers were... beta, maybe.)
So, the next choice is the IPAQ. And the IPAQ is a very slick piece of hardware, which will, hardware wise, anyway, support just about anything I want. It's also expensive, and kind of big and clunky. But it will run linux, which is a big win. Meanwhile, out of the box it runs wince, which is... well, better than PalmOS in terms of functionality, if annoying.
In many ways, the IPAQ is the current frontrunner. And there are some decent sales going on -- though the good sale isn't at the place that carries the 3975, and if I'm going to get it at all, I think I want the bluetooth support. (Though... there is a question of how much I want it. I can certainly get by without it, and in fact it won't do me any good until I upgrade my phone. OTOH, I want to use this fricking device for a while, and I will eventually be upgrading the phone.) Gah. It's a lot of money, anyway I look at it. OfficeMax has a really sweet deal going on the 3955... (Priced at $550, with a $75 gift card that would be put to use getting a keyboard right away...) Or I can get the 3975 at costco for $600, and buy my own keyboard. So, effectively a $125 price difference, and the (probably clunky) bluetooth add on for the 3955 costs a bit more than that.
And then, tempting (except that it would stick me with CE) is the low priced Toshiba e330. Which, soley as apiece of hardware, is the one I liked the best, smaller and lighter, nicely designed, and it would support pretty much everything I want it to. On wince. Feh.
I'm reminded why I've put this off before.
Finally found a place that actually has the Zaurus in stock so I could go play with one... Unfortunately, it just confused the issue further. I don't particularly care for the Zaurus as a piece of hardware. The thumb keyboard is annoying, the cover that slides down from it feels cheap and flimsy. And I didn't have the oppotunity to play around with it's browsing capabilities (the big killer app for me in this is being able to hit the traffic page remotely.)
I like the general feel and layout of the software (though the preloaded text editor is crippled in annoying ways). The character recognition software is adequate -- but I don't think I'd want to use it for anything particularly long, which brings me back to the problem with the lack of a compatible keyboard. (On the other hand, It's looking more and more like I might want to do a wiring hack with whatever keyboard I get, for ergo considerations... And the wiring side of it isn't particularly difficult, though last I checked the drivers were... beta, maybe.)
So, the next choice is the IPAQ. And the IPAQ is a very slick piece of hardware, which will, hardware wise, anyway, support just about anything I want. It's also expensive, and kind of big and clunky. But it will run linux, which is a big win. Meanwhile, out of the box it runs wince, which is... well, better than PalmOS in terms of functionality, if annoying.
In many ways, the IPAQ is the current frontrunner. And there are some decent sales going on -- though the good sale isn't at the place that carries the 3975, and if I'm going to get it at all, I think I want the bluetooth support. (Though... there is a question of how much I want it. I can certainly get by without it, and in fact it won't do me any good until I upgrade my phone. OTOH, I want to use this fricking device for a while, and I will eventually be upgrading the phone.) Gah. It's a lot of money, anyway I look at it. OfficeMax has a really sweet deal going on the 3955... (Priced at $550, with a $75 gift card that would be put to use getting a keyboard right away...) Or I can get the 3975 at costco for $600, and buy my own keyboard. So, effectively a $125 price difference, and the (probably clunky) bluetooth add on for the 3955 costs a bit more than that.
And then, tempting (except that it would stick me with CE) is the low priced Toshiba e330. Which, soley as apiece of hardware, is the one I liked the best, smaller and lighter, nicely designed, and it would support pretty much everything I want it to. On wince. Feh.
I'm reminded why I've put this off before.
