Need help selecting a HPC

I am interested in these HPC things. I am on a budget and have looked at two models. I have looked at a 360LX and a HP 200LX. The 200LX is more expensive, but granted I need a unit that runs on alkalines.

I am planning a trip to Africa, and will need a unit for notetaking and journaling while there. I will be in jungles, and in areas where a power source is not always available. The 360LX and the 200LX seem interesting. Can someone please help me pourchase the right machine? I just need a decent typing program, battery life, and a keyboard. I can live with the keyboard on these palmtops, and I do not need email, web, and internet stuff. I just need to be able to sync my notes, and journals to my desktop, once back in the states.


Thank you,


Jacob

Hi Jacob, if Africa is where you will be, dun fret about batteries! Just make sure you bring along a solar charger and packs of 2400mAh ni-mh batts.

Jacob,

Your trip sounds facinating.

I think that what could be a deciding factor in your question is which screen will be better for your needs.
In saturated light or on the reverse of low light levels (under tree canopy) you may start to see problems with AA powered devices.

The 200LX does not have a backlight as standards - although there are some groups who have added frontlights to the devices. Where as the 360LX comes with a "pure white" backlight which will help in low light levels... but does little to nothing in high lux conditions.

Battery life wise you are looking at potentially quite different numbers. The 200lx manual would have you believe that you can get 2 to 8 weeks out of it depending on use. Add periperal devices and that will plumet.
I would say on high end cells you're looking at 14 hours tops for both devices.

You will as a matter of course want to invest in a non-volatile storage device and save everything onto it - with research notes you clearly don't want to run the risk of loosing everything in the event of catastrophic failure.

One other thing that could be worth checking out is the spec. Weight and relative temperature / humidity tolerence. If you are in equatorial Africa or tropical regions then these could be an issue.

Both devices are productive tools, they appeal to different people but for those people are both effective devices. As this is a Windows CE forum, and on the basis of the backlight, I would go for the 360LX, ruggedise it a little - you maintain sync compatibility up to the latest Windows and Office releases using ActiveSync and it's a familiar user experience.
Windows CE also has TextMaker available and PlanMaker, which are Desktop standard wordprocessor and spreadsheet applications for the devices. While if you require and specialist software from your uni (assumes) there is a higher chance that a DOS version is on-tap for the 200LX than a CE version for the 360LX.

If you have any sort of budget, Snappy!'s suggestion on the solar charger and a couple of sets of high rating NiMH's + spare Coin Cells (just in case) would be ideal.

I hope some of that is useful to you. Keep us apprised of what you decide.

I think the idea of AA batteries is that you can bring a lot of them with you in one trip, then buy more when you get to a city.

For taking notes, Textmaker is an overkill PocketWord is more than enough.

I'm no expert on older HPC devices. But recently I saw someone auctioning "refurbished" Cassiopeias on the UK eBay, and ships everywhere too. These can run on AAs, use SH3 and CE 2, with backlit mono LCDs. Keyboard seems quite small tho. It might be enough... I guess. Someone correct me if I'm wrong

Just presenting all the options Takwu. I did say desktop standard