I had a lot of fun tinkering with my first CE 2.12 device, the NTT DoCoMo Pocket PostPet, until the screen cable failed. Having tried unsuccessfully thus far to locate a replacement
(there are some on Yahoo! Japan, but I'd need an intermediary to assist me, and the services online for this are pretty expensive
), and suffering from CE 2.12 withdrawal, I went out and picked up an ePods One on eBay. Originally marketed as an "Internet appliance" with a proprietary GUI overlaying CE 2.12, it's much easier to hack than the PPP, as described on this site:
http://www.geocities.com/epodsfiles/
So far, I'm using the "Easy" hack, which just requires substituting a small set of files in \Windows. What makes the ePods interesting, though, is that it has a flash storage module where it keeps the system files - and the files can be removed and replaced with other files, which means that you can actually permanently replace the proprietary GUI with a core Windows CE shell
(the "Full" hack
), which will survive a hard reset.
(The site linked above will explain how - but be careful. One mistake and you have a brick - and the process of rebuilding the file system to make it work again, while quite doable, is a major task.
)
The ePods has a pretty nice form factor. It's less than 2 cm thick, with almost an identical footprint to the IBM z50. The 640x480 screen displays 16-bit color
(65,536 colors
), though it's set at 8-bit
(256 colors
) by default.
(One registry edit changes the display to the higher color depth, and it's the same edit that does this on the Fujitsu PenCentra 200.
) There are two USB host ports, and a Microsoft-compatible mouse and keyboard work out of the box. USB flash drives can also be used with it, using the Iomega Clik! USB driver.
(As with the Intermec 6651, you have to use the MIPS 3000 version; the MIPS 4000 one won't work.
) It also has serial and infrared ports, an audio-in jack, an audio-out jack, and an internal microphone.
(Microsoft Voice Recorder for Windows CE is not preinstalled; however, I've installed it and it works nicely.
)
The other nice thing about the ePods is that CE 2.12 supports Internet Explorer CE 4.0, which while far from perfect is a significant improvement over PIE 3.0.
(Despite this, only PIE 3 is pre-installed, but you can download IE CE 4 from the site linked above, and you don't have to remove PIE 3 before installing IE CE 4.
)
As with the PPP, I've tried some hexedited CE 3.0 programs on it to see if they work, and again about the only one that works on it that doesn't work on my CE 2.11 devices is AClock.
(See the screenshot below.
)
Downsides:
1
) Since CE 2.12 isn't a platform version
(it's instead a "Platform Builder" version
), it doesn't have any PIM programs, nor the full Pocket Office suite.
(It does have Pocket Word.
) Despite this, it has the PIM databases by default, so maybe there's a solution.
(I tried installing the Today application from Power Toys 2.0, and the PIM Today app from the H/PC Pro Plus! Pack, but neither will open. I believe they require msgstore.dll, since they both draw data from the Inbox, but this file is missing from \Windows on the device, and I can't assume there aren't other things needed that are missing. The CE 2.x-hexedited version of Executability Check won't work properly on this device.
) There's a lot of discussion of this in the ePods forums, but no answers.
2
) Despite being marketed as an "Internet appliance," it doesn't even have an internal modem.
(You use a PCMCIA modem card.
) And, like on the PenCentra, the Agere WiFi driver doesn't install. I did install the Prism-based driver for my Belkin F5D-6060 card, and the card works fine, but so far I haven't connected successfully to the Internet.
3
) You can't sync data with the PC because, if you create a partnership, the device disconnects within a couple of seconds, throwing some kind of error message about insufficient memory even though plenty of memory is available. This disconnect happens every time you connect the device to the PC.
(It does not disconnect nor show this error message if you do not set up a partnership and instead connect as a guest.
) Again, there's a lot of discussion of this in the ePods forums, but it's clear that ePods hackers have just resigned themselves to doing without ActiveSync partnerships.
4
) Only 16 MB of RAM standard. It can be upgraded to 32 MB, but where can you find a RAM upgrade module for it these days?
The battery on this one also won't hold a charge. Dunno if I can find a replacement, and I've had mostly bad luck so far rebuilding battery packs.
Anyone else have one of these and want to share his/her experiences?
(ePods.JPG)Attachments
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ePods.JPG (41KB - 0 downloads)
