Scala - 2005-06-23 7:36 PM
I want to know which HPC to buy. not over $250... does anyone think I should just screw the whole HPC ordeal and get a KB for my Axim X30 (with 624mhz)?
The HPC's look much better in my opinion.
A lot depends on what you wish to do. Your 624Mhz Axim is powerful and can do a lot. You can easily use it for a stereo MP3 music player, run multimedia, store photos, use it inside or outside
(something you cant do with any true handheld--see the screen in bright sunlight
). If you just add a Stowaway type folding keyboard to your Axim, you will spend much less than buying a clam shell handheld and you will have a more versatile powerful device. The PDA keyboards are superior for input than any Jornada keyboard and what you carry--fold up keyboard and Axim--will be less bulk than any NEC handheld.
Major differences between your Axim are: the powerful processor, up to date O/S, quality sound hardware, voice input and output capability, and quality record. The list is long. Among the handhelds being discussed here, the closest match would be the the recently discountinued NEC 900 which is still an inferior device compared to your Axim. The 900 display is dated, largely due to Microsoft. You do get much longer active use time with a handheld than with your Axim PDA but you can fix than with a spare battery.
I have an excellent discountinued PDA that is no where near as powerful as your Axim but I only pay about $30 for them, barely used--The Casio BE 300. It fits nicely in any shirt pocket, is very light & thin, highly O/E and CF card modifiable and has a stereo socket. Despite its mere 163 MHz MIPS processor, I run video clips and can show photos with it. I use it for ebooks and data storage and access. What makes the BE 300 so modifiable is what turned many people away from it. Casio used Win CE 2.11 kernal but built its own O/E leaving the 300 with a static menu and limited software portability. But with an enthusiast made O/E hack, my favorite is Xpod 6.1, an amazing array of PDA software installs and runs on this MIPS PDA.
I have a Jornada 680e
(which {http://store.yahoo.com/justdeals/handheldpcpda.html has reduced to $104 & still includes a warranty} & an NEC 780.
The jornada is more adaptable and modifiable than the NEC 780 but the 780 is much more handy for entering data. It is difficult to find software for it and to get third party software to work in it. In that regard, the jornada 680e is significantly more flexible
I am looking to buy a NEC 790. When I get one, I will sell the 780. The only reason for keeping the Jornada 680e is fun. I enjoy its quality construction
(NEC was amazingly cheap about its cases. I had to and advise new owners of NEC units to insert a PCMCIA to CF card adapter into the PCMCIA slot to keep the case from cracking or breaking there. The larger screen is a plus but after you install the Jornada display patch in the 680/680e, the 680 display is better, despite being smaller.
Again, your choice depends on what you intend to do. If having fun is part of your intent, then I would consider a Jornada 680 or 720. If data input is important and your hands are larger than those of a petite woman or someone from Japan, you may want a NEC 780, 790, 800 series or a 900. Price and value calculus wise, a 780 is a good bet in practical use device
(they recently flooded the market so you can get one for under $150
) Insofar as the NEC bigger size goes, it is still much smaller, lighter, thinner than a notebook PC and as an user and owner of dozens of laptops and notebooks over the past 20 years, I consider handhelds the true mobile device. Notebook PCs are nothing more than portable desktops. I call them lug-a-bouts.
NEC & Jornada handhelds are the real mobile PCs. PDAs are still largely luxury toys so long as data input remains the serious problem it is. Screen keyboards, thumbpads, & sometimes tiny screens of Smartphones just incredibly reduce practical use.
My hope for PDAs was that random pattern recognition and thus voice recognition would be solved by now. Dragon just dramatically improved speech recognition but the program is huge and it eats more resources than most home desktop PCs have t spare. ...Maybe Sharp will embed Dragon onto a ROM chip...
Finally, if you want to use a handheld for diverse, all around use
(Internet, data input, music, ebooks, etc
) your best bet is to look at the Jornada 720 & NEC 880.
If you are willing to pay for a used J 728 or a NEC 900, I would first consider the Sharp Linux driven Zaurus SL-C860, SL-C1000 or SL-C3000. But you already have an Axim 628 MHz device.
If Sharp would just place the SL-C860
(discountinued
) into a Jornada 680 case, they would have a killer handheld to beat all handhelds!!
...Of course, this is all merely my humble opinion...
--Bruised
Sith Lords!!. 
at least for me. and the ppc will not be so portable any more... so i might as well get a real hpc with bigger screen 
