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aab - 2012-07-27 4:43 PM
That's not a fair comparison as the TRGPro isn't made by Palm and has several MAJOR improvements over a palm.
I disagree. A TRGpro is very much a Palm III, just as a Compaq C-Series 810 is very much a Windows CE device. The 810 has extra built in programs, like a financial calculator, Quick Notes, a system-wide spell checker and a great little backup program. It can even handle 20-megs of built-in RAM. Just because it has extras doesn’t mean it’s not descended from the original.
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aab
However I'm extremely skeptical about it not crashing since it runs Palm OS after all, perhaps if you limit yourself to the built in apps or are VERY careful about the quality of apps you install, but so many Palm apps crash Palm OS all the time. Mine would crash several times a day back when I actually used one and required a toothpick I kept in the battery compartment to reset it.
You know which apps I run, I’ve written about it here as well as in private emails to you. I don’t run as many games as you and that may be the difference. As for being careful of what I install, yes, that’s true. I don’t have anything on my main TRGpro that I don’t actually use or need. Like with my MobilePro 700, I do run a backup machine and software/hardware gets tested there first. As far as losing data on a Palm device that’s only happened once. It was a Palm Professional running OS2.something and yes, it lost everything. Since moving to a TRGpro and OS 3.5.3 I have lost nothing and that’s been about a half dozen years now.
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aab
The data loss is also not normally from a result of a crash but from the fact you have an absurd 60 seconds to change batteries before total data loss, that was really a completely ridiculous system to have to highly risk all your data every single time the battery dies. If you happen to drop a battery as you're changing it and don't find it immediately, say goodbye to all your data. How hard would it have been to add a backup battery like every CE device?
I’ve never lost data from changing batteries. A minute or so is long enough for me. However, did you know you can change the capacitor and beef it up. I did that with a couple of Palm m125’s I ran a few years ago. They lasted about five minutes without batteries and never lost data with low batteries installed even after a week or so, if I remember correctly.
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aab
About entering text, the text recognition (both Jot and Calligrapher) are MILES ahead of Palm's Graffiti where you basically have to relearn how to draw most letters in completely unnatural ways and you must draw it precisely the way they chose that letter to the drawn. Even Jot recognizes several different ways of writing each letter and calligrapher learns your precise writing style rather than making you learn to write like an alien, and even the onscreen keyboard is far better and customizable.
I’ve never had a problem entering text with Graffiti , Jot, Calligrapher or using cursive handwriting on a Newton. It may be just me but I’ve never had a problem adapting to any text entering system and I’ve used a lot of them since the early ‘90s.
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aab
About the backup, again that only applies to a TRGPro, all other Palms must be backed up to a desktop PC and as I remember it took about an hour for just a few megs (my Philips Nino backs up about as much data in minutes, also over serial).
That’s simply not true. My Palm m125’s and Tungsten C can be backed up to SD cards in the built in slots
(with the addition of a backup program
). My Sony SL10 also has a built in backup program and saves to the built in MS card slot. As for generic Palm III’s there is always the MemorySafe
(neat little device that hangs off the end of the Palm and its software can be loaded into the flash of early OS 3 devices. Sorry, it won`t work with later OS 3 devices because the operating system updates took too much room in flash. Although, if you use it with the program just loaded into regular RAM it does work but you need to reinstall or beam the program to your Palm III if you crash
).
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aab
I might actually get a TRGPro, does it have the "proper" backlight or that silly reversed backlight the Palm IIIxe has? It really is a physical change they did to the display as even with the hack to reverse it back it looks absolutely nothing like a normal LCD screen, it has this weird holographic look where items change from black to white depending on the angle/light conditions.
The TRGpro is rare, like its brother the Handera 330. Good luck finding one. There used to be a guy selling surplus units for between $70-100 on eBay but I haven`t seen any available to Canada for a year or so now. I bought a lot of them but most of them are gone now. If you really want a Palm-type device with a card slot and that runs on AAA batteries you might want to think about a Palm m125, Sony SL10 or one of the Handspring devices
(the latter could be fitted with a module that took either a SmartMedia or a CF card
). And yes, the backlight sucks. I remember the Palm Pro backlight and this isn`t anywhere close. Don`t buy a TRGpro based on its backlight.
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aab
Can you install a program on a TRGPro by simply putting a prc file on a CF card and inserting the CF card? Can you "install" the program onto the Palm so you can then use it without the CF card inserted?
I honestly don’t know. I’ve never tried it. However, I do know that you can have enormous databases or text files on the CF cards.
Rick