You can still buy the batteries new from 3rd parties for around £20. Maybe try out the 720 on mains for a while to see if you think it’s worth it.
Software recommendations depend very much on what you are planning to use it for. I used HPC Notes as a kind of journal a lot when I had a research job back in the early 00’s. I used the built-in Outlook for planning my days. SoftMaker’s TextMaker and PlanMaker were a great word processor and spreadsheet solution. If J720s could cope with modern wireless file transfers, I’d probably still be using mine instead of my Gemini
(which only costs a little more than good condition J720s do on eBay
) Other useful apps for me were
(still on my J720 when I turn it back on
):
Cash Organiser 2000 - for tracking spending. Has a great autocomplete feature that learns from previous entries
MobiPocket
(‘Mobibook’
) for HPC - reads mobi ebook files
Adobe Acrobat pdf reader - there is a version tweaked to run on HPCs
nPOPuk - the only email client that seems to support modern email protocols
(at least it did a couple of years ago
)
GSPlayer2 - great little MP3 player
HPC Media Player
(based on the TCPMP player
) - great little movie player
(convert DVDs to just about watchable 22 frames/sec J720 compatible movies using Catalyst if it’s available here on HPC factor
)
SimCity 2000
GAPI - app that helps our old machines push their video and game playing limits a bit.
Have fun!