mobilepro and jornada recommendation and help

firstly, hi guys.

i have recently started looking for a hpc along the lines of the mobilepro 900 and jornada 728, that sort of shape and size. apart from these two, are there any others similar that anyone would recommend?

if not, i will most likely look to buy the mobilepro 900c. if so, i was wondering if the ram is upgradeable and also if it can have a different OS. the reason for asking about the OS is that i would like to use Firefox for example rather than the IE 6 for handheld or whatever it is.

cheers guys and grateful for any help.

If you're wanting a Gecko-based browser (which Firefox is), then your best bet would be to run Linux on it and try out a browser like Midori or similar. Otherwise, for Windows CE your best bet for a Mozilla browser would be Minimo, but there hasn't been a new build that works for CE 4.2 devices in a long time (only WM5 binaries are created in new versions). There's also always Opera which works fairly well under CE 4.2, and even more so when using Redgear from what I hear.

If you plan to do a lot of browsing, I'd recommend a Psion Netbook Pro, SmartBook G138, or NTT DoCoMo Sigmarion III. (The Sig 3 is between the 728 and 900C in size; the other two are somewhat bigger than the 900C.)

cheers ce geek, the ones you mention seem to be much more than i can hopefully get the 900c for but thanks.
mscdex, so are you saying that i would first put any type of linux on it then try different browsers?

cheers guys

i didn't win the bid for the mobilepro 900c, it went for a bit more than i thought and i didn't bid enough.
i think it will possibly be the jornada 728 now but i dont know what wireless card will be compatible, any ideas?

Lots:

http://www.hpcfactor.com/hcl/

any recommendations?

i believe the 728 is under the 2000 colume, is that right?

What I've used with my 728:

1) 3Com model 3CRWE62092B;

2) Agere ORiNOCO Classic Gold; and

3) SanDisk ConnectPlus (with 128 MB storage on-card)

All three of these have worked nicely for me. The ORiNOCO is the easiest to find online, and also tends to be the lowest-priced, but don't confuse low price with low quality - it does work quite well. (Look for the older Agere and Lucent versions, as well as some clones like the 2Wire and WaveLAN cards. Newer ORiNOCO models released by Proxim Wireless, and their clones like the Avaya World Card, should also work, but H/PC users here are getting less consistent results from them.)

i still haven't got my HPC yet as i keep getting out bid on ebay. and that is my dilemma.
i keep seeing these attractive yet old pieces of hardware increasing and increasing until they are reaching £80 or more and it then makes me think that there a few up to date mini laptops such as the elonex one t going for the same money. although i know that the jornada and mobilepro were very expensive when they were new as i am sure they were very advanced for their time, surely they can't be more powerful/quicker at performing tasks than todays budget machines.
would it worth just getting one of the newer machines or is there something the older HPCs can offer that is worth getting them.

eh, the elonex is a piece of junk..

compared to an EEE, the hpc's are (usually) smaller, instant on, good battery life (if battery is no good, you can easily recell it with new cells), easy to use in some aspects.

EEE is of course more supported as it runs on x86. if you just want to surf, then get that.

oh, as for sizes, the smartbook is about the same size as 900c, the netbook pro is significantly (to me) bigger. like an EEE.

PS: i dont recommend the sandisk for a wifi card on hpc2000, too fiddly to get the driver working (but it does work then).

Edited by cmonex 2008-10-08 1:28 PM

Too fiddly even with ShadowMaster's version of the driver?

http://www.damnsoft.org/

how about this?? http://tinyurl.com/4wqcyq
any idea what wireless card i'd use?

Lots:

http://www.hpcfactor.com/hcl/

i finally bought it! i got the 790 mobilepro.
it comes with a us ac adapter though which i assume would mean that a simple ac adapter wouldn't work as surely the voltage needs to be adapted also. anyone know what type of adapter would be needed?
cheers for all your help guys

Edited by marc.knuckle 2008-10-10 4:25 PM

sorry for the dp, this shows as being compatible with the mobilepro 790 i think, would any agree http://tinyurl.com/3vyk95