HDH - 2005-08-16 9:46 AM
Interesting point of view that I understand only to well. I bought a J720 many moons ago after reading several rave reviews. At the time I was still running a 233 Mhz desktop with WIN98 and I thought a H/PC with 206 Mhz must be good. Sadly the software on the J720 wasn’t up to the job and I buried it in my desk amongst other redundant junk I had acquired over the years. Only recently after acquiring a new battery fairly cheaply I reactivated the J720, still the shortcomings had not disappeared.
As with anything, a lot of it depends upon what, exactly, you want to use your J720 for. For me, there have been numerous stretches of time where one of my HPCs, be it my old HP 360LX, my IBM z50, or my NEC MobilePro 880, has had to take the role of both desktop and laptop replacement. Fortunately, between Pocket Office, and a few other useful apps I've acquired, they've been able to do so.
What were you looking to do with yours?
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I joint this forum in the hope that software updates or patches would be available. Installing Linux maybe the way forward, but I have to admit what I have seen so far is not very promising. It appears far to complicated for users that have a limited knowledge of programming. This leads me to the view that we have to accept that the H/PC’s running CE are just toys and not replacements for the work environment.
Gotta disagree with you on this one. I'm a network administrator, keeping four separate law offices, with a combined total of 80 workstations and 14 servers, up and running. I'm on the road all the time. The company provided me with a nice, 5-lb IBM Thinkpad. However, it's proven to be less reliable than my NEC in general, significantly more bulky, much quicker to drain its battery, and overall not that necessary - I carry around my personal NEC more than the company-provided laptop.
With my NEC, or my z50 before it, I can:
-- Surf the net, via wired or WiFi
(well, I could before my Linksys WCF11 card died, but wired still works, and a new card's on the way
)
-- Connect, via Terminal Services, to any machine I needed to, including my home one, to do management
-- Natively troubleshoot problems my attorneys have with their digital voice recorders, which use either Smart Media or XD cards. I've got a nice PCMCIA 7-in-1 card reader that lets me read any of 'em.
-- Take notes in meetings, work on spreadsheets for cost projections for future upgrades, check my email, ping machines I'm having trouble connecting to, listen to MP3s, and even play a game or two.
My GF, meanwhile, doesn't get quite as much use out of her MP880, because she's not set up with RDP on her desktop, meaning she can't connect to it when not in her dorm to use some of the software she uses as a math major, or access the coding languages she needs for her CS minor, or some of the software she needs for her neurobio
(premed
) major. She does save documents and stuff she needs to read to it all the time, though, then heads off to "Nowhere, Middle of" to read 'em.
Again, it all depends on what you need it for.
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I would love to own a H/PC with decent desktop compatible software and at least 4 hours battery life weighing less than 2 pounds.
I will be looking at the flybook A33i and OQO Model 01 in the near future. Maybe these new machines with a full version of Windows or Linux will provide the answer.
Until then I use my H/PC to write the odd letter and read PDF files.
Hmm, my HP 360LX gets 8 hours or so on a set of AAs. My NEC gets around 4-6 hours, running a CF memory card or PC card hard drive. Even with network connectivity I usually get good battery life in the 3-4 hour range. A friend of mine, who has a z50 and the extended battery, reports 8-11 hours, depending on what he's doing.
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