7" Mini Note with CE5.0

Suzy, there should be no reason why a CE based device can not connect to your router.

I suggest you register as a user here as there a lot of experienced people who can at least offer some help to get your latest purchase working.

At a first guess you are maybe running security and need to enter details (sorry if you tried that dont know how much you tried already).

Anyway. Dont give up (although not the fastest device on the market it should be usefull as somthing to travel with)

John

PS dont pay anyone else any money for support all the experts and help you could want is available from members on here.

Edited by mr-mac 2009-03-27 4:40 PM

I went into Robert Dyas today to have a play with the Inkia. It is currently going for £149.99 which, frankly, is not a good value proposition, considering that the Cuol Book which is identical is going for just £99 on eBay. You can even get the WinXP version of the EeePC 701 for £154 from the Carphone Warehouse which arguably provides better customer support for just £4 more. Yes, I know that the Inkia probably has a better battery life than the EeePC, but there is not much else going for it. Part of the problem is that the photos of the Inkia show the Windows Bliss as the wallpaper, which is likely to confuse the less tech-savvy customer that they are not buying something running the Windows they are used to.

Even though I am familiar with CE, the Inkia doesn't have instant on, and the processor at 400MHz was struggling with most websites I tried to visit - sites like Google Reader (the full version crashed the browser) and BBC News. Looks like only the mobile formatted sites could be viewed without waiting an eternity for the page to render. And yet it is billed as a netbook.

Then there was the hardware quality - it had the texture of one of those cheap replacement phone chargers you get from China. Yes, it all fits together, but it doesn't feel all that durable. There is a fragility about it. The lack of a touchscreen also drove me mad! The keyboard mouse is useable, but slow, and you can only move in either the X- or the Y-axes, no diagonals. So forget about drawing things - it is more like an Etch-a-sketch. The external mouse is not a solution.

I found a video on line where someone called Charbax interviewed a spokewoman from Inkia who were selling the Inkia at USD$100 in bulk orders of 5000 units. You can see where they cut corners. I guess Robert Dyas must have bought these and are now laughing all the way to the bank.

I was seriously going to get a Cuol Book, but after having had a play I think I will save my money for one of the new Cortex-based netbooks. The Inkia is, sadly, a bit of a missed opportunity.

Edited by ZSX 2009-03-31 5:06 PM

ZSX add to that.... Cuol book which is £99 on ebay also has softmaker and the inkia does not...

I bought one from Robert Dyas - The manual is only of use to say what you should have in the box.

It has
1 a good version of WORDPAD with a couple of useful templates
2 a slowish version of EXEL viewer
3 a couple of useful gems doc writer whitch is TEXT and spreadsheet which is PLAN from a software company from Germany.
The text writer is blisteringly fast and has more useful features than Word 2003 and allows pictures, spreadsheets and databases to be included. It can read and write to .doc and open office and several other formats.
Plan is a multiple page spreadsheet again with useful features enabling calculations and good formating and chart making. It can read and write to EXCEL format and open office and a few others.
4. Windows mulitmeadia plays wmv mpg etc
5. CORE plays Mpeg4 MOv wmv mpg flv and several other formats and allows rotation and magnification of video plus slow or fast speed. - I have found you need to increase the size of the cache so larger megabite files play.
6. 3 card games if you like them
7. It WiFi's to my wireless router and can to point to point computer linking.
the connection is not fast but ok.
The internet uses Microsoft IE mobile and is shipped in mobile version but by searching the setup you can set it to pc mode which I prefer.
8. it has an email client - I do not use this as I use WEB based emails usually.
9. It allows secure sites so you can internet bank and do ebay transactions.
10. it has a built in flash disk as well as the general memory. The general memory you can configure to adjust how much is for files and how much for program area and a simple bar shows how much is free or used in each plus the amount in figures.
11.The mouse port is actually a usb port so you can use it on either side.
12. the smaller usb port comes with an adaptor to make it a full size usb.
13. fully charged it does work for just over 3 hours.
14. it has a stereo out head phone line but no microphone in.
15. It comes programmed to use skype - you need a usb handset or headset to communicate though.
16. PDF reader - is not good - it does not decode properly and text formatting can overlay other text. It cannot read very big pdf files.
17. I cannot get it to load any other programs even using fully decopressed CE 5.0 programs and the CABS files placed in the main windows directory.
18. it has a command interface and has limmited dos commands and is simialr to DOS 5 for those who remember how to dos. it allows pipes - so you can "type directory/S>prt" and get a full text file with the directory ,sub directory and files printed to the file named prt but you have to rename prt as prt.txt to read it!
19. It reads SD MMC cards and treats them as flash memory and allows read and write programs.
20.likewise it allows usb flash memory sticks to be used.
21. it reads my mp3 player into the play list of windows media but as a long list of named mp3s not in their albums.

so if you like gadgets its a fun and useful item.

Having used a J720 for my mobile computing needs for a lomg time I switched recently to a 8.9" netbook Toshiba NB100 running XP Home. Also not as quick to launch as my J720 the wireless conectivity and USB ports compensates. Its the first device I have worked with that is small enough on a full XP OS that I can carry around in my pocket. These devices are finally getting smaller with a decent battery life. I will stick around the forum, there might be a section for small XP netbooks in the future :-).

1 my inkia is identical to the cuol book and the cuol website has a better instruction manual.
2 my inkia does have a built in microphone and skype works ok without a headset
3 I can load programs as long as they are cabs and now have fewmore games and another pdf reader which does not jumble up the page like the shipped pdf reader does - TCPMP forum website has a list of cab programs
4 useing the usb cable from my mp3player the inkia can link to a PC - it took a while for my pc to recognize the inkia and install the drivers but my pc treats it as separate drive and can write read and delete to it

Here is one with CE 6.0 from Hong Kong. They did confirm with me that it's with Windows CE 6.0. We can see PC703 label (not very clearly). If so, it's PC703 from Firstview in Shenzhen, China.
http://cgi.ebay.com/7-netbook-mini-laptop-notebook-Windows-CE-6-0-W...

Edited by CAuser 2009-11-03 1:05 PM

It's CE 5 according to FirstView's own site:

http://www.efirstview.com/product/en/product_list.asp?sortid=21

Looks like just another incarnation of the ubiquitous Alpha 400/RazorBook 400/etc.

Gosh, I asked the seller about the OS version and he checked and said it was CE6.

I seem to recall similar claims about the Alpha 400 having CE 6 - that turned out to be vaporware too. I'll believe it when I see a photo of the device with the System Properties window on the screen (or at least a desktop with the "Windows Embedded CE" logo).

Edited by CE Geek 2009-11-04 12:44 AM

Okay, I saw a screenshot of a smartQ 5. It says 'Windows Embedded CE 6.0'. The seller did mention the improvement of the device with CE over Linux.

Yes, the SmartQ devices can run CE 6.0. I have it on my Q7 and it's alright, but there are some quirks though. However, that may be due to the way the image was created. I was able to find some files that included the CE driver sources for the Q7 and other things. I'm assuming these files are to be used in PB to create a CE image specifically for the Q7.

In related news, there's a user (Dave from Chronolytics) who has been publishing improved (ubuntu) linux firmware images for the Q7. For anyone interested in the SmartQ devices, there's active forums dedicated to them here.

Edited by mscdex 2009-11-11 3:54 PM

I have a 7inch Windows CE 5.0 and I need to find a Full Screen Flash Player.

Can anyone guide me in the right direction?

kan any 1 tell mepasswordfor bios ofapc703 mini laptop

I bought one of these too. I was hoping to find a forum with at least some support but so far nothing.

It lacks several things, a calculator would be nice. I'd really like a PIM. And nearly every program that I have tried to install will not.

I have used it for Yahoo mail which works ok but a bit slow. And I have typed a few documents.
I was hoping to use this in lieu of my Ipaq for most things.

If this will active-sync I have no clue as to how. I am most interested now in possibly flashing it to Linux or a different version of CE that actually has programs and support.