Sharp Mobilon HC-4500a

Never thought I'd have one, but here I am sitting with one in my hands, with a new rechargeable battery no less. And the price was right, absolutely free! I traded my only Norwegian model Nokia 9000i for it though, but I still have three US versions.

Just curious though, what is the difference between the HC-4500, 4500a, and the 4600? I notice on mine, there isn't a modem jack like the others I've seen. Just some indents where it was supposed to sit.

The HC-4500A doesn't have a built-in modem like the HC-4500. The HC-4600 has room for RAM expansion from 16 MB to 32 MB - a nice bit of extra elbow room for a CE 2.0 unit. As I recall, all three accommodated a later ROM upgrade to H/PC Pro - I don't suppose you got one of those.

I see, well that explains that! Thanks for filling me in. 32mb sure would have been nice, and no, no ROM upgrade. I guess I'll be on the lookout for one, of course they're like finding a needle in a haystack on Mars.

Pretty much.

I like my 4600 (with the RAM upgrade), even with CE 2.0. The .NET Compact Framework 1.0 SP3 port was a big boost. Kinda cool being able to run several apps originally written for Pocket PCs on a CE 2.0 device, and I like the bright color screen on the Mobilon. Only downside is the short battery capacity (pretty much less than two hours on a full charge, even at reduced brightness).

Who uses a 33.6Kbps modem anyways? Guess you could use it as a cheap fax machine... I remember loving the VGA color camera until I realized that I never used it for anything...

Remember way back when the Federal Trade Commission was the catalyst for the 2.0 rom upgrade? Before your time HPC:Fan, but they advertised the 4100, 4500, and the 4600 as rom upgradeable while they had no intention of ever offering the upgrade...so they were taken to court and sued and rather than face severe fines for false advertisement, they made a single production run of rom chips...something along the line of 10,000 rom chips...a one time thing...and offered them to new users at a discounted price.

They didn't offer them to the original buyers however because the advertisement had changed and the older ones didn't state the rom was upgradeable. So it was only from a certain date onward...and of course we know that they soon got out of the HPC business afterwards.

Heck, none of their computers were ever anything to write home about afterwards...even their Windows smartphone line failed. They just should have stuck with calculators....

You can't be too hard on Sharp, Rich. Look at the broad range of H/PCs they turned out, from the Mobilon to the TriPad to the Telios.

HPC:Fan, how on earth did you find a new battery? I just got one for my Psion 7--I think it was from the only place in the world, a repair shop in Germany.

Jake

The guy I traded had rebuilt the battery himself with some higher capacity batteries. I'd open it up to take a look, but I'm scared to ruin it. (I tend to have that effect on things.)

That's great. Have you clocked your usage times yet? It'd be interesting to hear if the new batteries give longer life.

Jake

I haven't, been busy sleeping due to pain meds because of my back. Will eventually get around to it though, I'm also curious now since you said that the batteries gave maybe two hours of real life use.

Trouble is they stood in the shadow of their Zaurus line, which was made until 2007 and maintains a decent following. OpenBSD supported some of the last-gen Zauruses until two months ago.

That really reinforces my point, though - they really made a lot of good stuff. (I remember when we got a Sharp battery-and-AC-powered 9" portable black-and-white TV back in 1969 - even came with a shaded screen cover so we could watch it at the beach. It was still working 20 years later. )

I can attest to Sharp. Back in the 90's, they used to be my favorite electronics brand next to Sony. My TV and stereo were sharp, they're still alive and kicking today. I have a Sharp Tripad which has seen some serious use in its day, yet it's still going strong. No clue about modern Sharp though.

CEGeek: That really reinforces my point, though - they really made a lot of good stuff.

So did Kaiser, Pontiac, Edsel, Plymouth, Oldsmobile, Studebaker, Avanti, Tucker, Checker, Crosley...etc...

But Ford gave the people what they wanted...and they are still here! If Sharp would have done that, who knows?

I have a few thoughts on that:

http://www.facebook.com/GreggFritchleForCaliforniaAssembly2012/post...

BTW, Edsel was a Ford, Rich.