Neta 980 Lost its Mind

I don't have a way to test it, as my laptop does not have IRDA, but I can report that there is nothing for IRDA in the control panel (though I don't know if there would be).

You may want to check in the the PC Connection Tab in the Control Panel.

The Neta only shows a USB connection. See if the Airpanel software shows an IRDA connection.

You can go to my computer and select a small file send to and select infrared reipient. (or receive..)

When I do that with the Neta, I get a clinking sound that indicates that the function is not active.



DG

I tried the Viewpad 100 image from Viewsonic. At first it would only start the bootloader and freeze. I formatted my 128mb CF card and tried again. This time it worked. My Neta 980 now thinks it is a Viewsonic. It is alot faster than the original Neta image. Web browsing is no longer a painful experience. There are less applications than on the Neta image but I can deal with less to gain speed and stability.

You're using a Viewpad 100 image.

Isn't that HPC2000 based?

If so, why would the browsing experience be better?

I have a Jornada 720. It's a great device... but the browser is based on the IE4.0 (Correct me if I am wrong). The CE.Net 4.1 devices are based on IE5.5 technology.

In general, the browsing experience is better on the Neta than on the Jornada (with both of them using Wireless).

I can see going with the Airpanel 100 image. I just don't know if I could find a reason to go back to that technology.

Note: It's again good to know that the Viewsonic images will work...as 21st Century doesn't seem to keep any images on this device (even though they are still actively selling them.).

DG

My mistake, I'm using an airpanel 100 CE.net 4.2 image. You can get either CE 3.0, CE.net 4.0, or CE.net 4.1 images from viewsonic. All will work on the Neta. The original NETA rom seemed slow and buggy compared to the Viewsonic. As I stated before, web browsing is much, much faster. That alone was a good reason to switch to the Viewsonic image instead of sending my dead unit back to Futurecom.

I would agree with you that my next change will be to try the Airpanel image.

You indicated that you have a CE.Net 4.2

That would be an upgrade....

I've not seen that version available for the Airpanel.

They have

P100_CE_Communicator
Size: 21207KB
Product(s): airpanel 100
Operating System(s): Windows CE 4.1
Driver/Utility: CE Image <-- This one has most of the Neta components!

and:

AP100_CE_ThinClient
Size: 13405KB
Product(s): airpanel 100
Operating System(s): Windows CE 4.1
Driver/Utility: CE Image

The best image of the 2 would be the Communicator.

Now a 4.2 image would be incredible!



DG

Ok, I'm not doing well with telling my story here. I meant to say CE.net 4.1 rom. There is a 4.2 rom available for the Viewpad 210 but it probably won't work. It says the load finished but there are no changes upon reboot.

The 4.1 rom for the 100 works great. A important note however: There are less applications on the Viewsonic ROM than on the Neta ROM

mikegrimsley76, can you tell me what is the internet explorer exe name in this 4.1 rom and what was it in the neta image (or David G can tell me about the latter)?
thanks

I understand.

Please let me know of any bugs that you might encounter (as well as operating system fixes).

I know that I can copy the PTAB Spreadsheet from the Neta (I am testing a copy on my Jornada). It is just one .exe file. If you need a copy to replace the one missing from the Viewsonic image... let me know.

On-Schedule would be a different story. I don't think that can be replaced.

If you could test to see if the IRDA worked (see some of my previous posts), that would be cool.

Finally, my Neta(s) seem to suffer from a audio volume bug. As you move the slider up the audio gets louder then soft then loud, etc.. Does the Viewsonic image fix that?

Any of your feedback would be appreciated.

DG

cmonex, the IE executable is name iesample.exe. Not sure what the name was on the Neta

David G, I'll test audio and IRDA and get back to you. I found a link to an OEM copy of On-Schedule in another thread about the neta. It works much better than the original Neta one did. If you could send me PTAB that would be great.

CMONEX: The neta uses iesample.exe as well.

mikegrimsley76: Check your email for the file.

A side note: If I could write, I would do a review of the Neta 980 on the this site. Not without its flaws, it is a nice unit!

DG

wow this neta is so big..

btw thanks for the answers

That it is...

You can tell from the photo's that I bypass the use of my stylus quite a bit

I use the Neta as my Star Trek Reader. I have 30 or more books on my CF card and can easily browse and download more directly off the internet and read with Mobipocket!

I use the Citrix client software to access files at work.

It is not really a handheld...(The same thing can be said for the z50.), yet it is fun to use, and useful.

The battery life is good; up to 2 hours with the WIFI on. (I now own a second battery from a junked Airpanel 100).

If I had to sell all of my machines, I believe that the Neta would be the 2nd to the last to go... (Last is the z50 - I love the form factor and it was my first CE handheld - the Jornada would probably go first because it would be the easiest to sell!!!)

DG

i can see that. at home it can't be too big anyway
i never saw a neta, only a simpad sl4 and it was nice.



hey can't resist this question.. up to 2 hrs with wifi, is that considered good? not to hurt your feelings, i consider that quite poor, same applies to my sigmarion, 2-3 hrs with continuous wlan usage... surely can't be compared to my jornadas, 5 hrs of wlan even with the default battery, and if you rebuild it (very easy).. well you never run out of power then, 8-9 hrs with active wlan usage all the time.
and the laptops i used could do 2 hrs with wifi, so where's the advantage (yeah, instant on, that helps a lot even with battery life but i often do wlan for more than 2 hrs at one time )

It sounds about right to me - I get about 2 hours of WiFi with my ViewPad 100 on battery. But, you have to remember that the battery also has to run that monster TFT screen that a Jornada doesn't. (Sig III is TFT as well no?) A large part of the power consumption of a portable device (HPC, PPC, Laptop, Tablet, phone, etc...) is the screen, followed by the harddrive (if any installed).

Bigger screens draw more power, and TFT draws more power than DSTN. [Which is probably why Piddle PC's are so popular - those tiny screens (even with TransReflective TFT's) don't draw lots of power and so they run forever on a battery charge.] So, yeah I'd say 3 hours on battery with a WiFi card is pretty good.