How do Sig 3's Compare to Jornada 720-728

cmonex
How do the Sig 3's compare to the J720 & J728? I had never seen one until the lovely baby pictures appeared. I found a web-site that shows how to convert the Sig 3 to as much English as possible-which I'm sure you have already done. My J728 hasn't even arrived yet (in transit) and I'm drooling over these Sig 3's, like Wally. Has anyone done a review of them in English? I tried to find one on Ebay-there aren't any. I do have a niece living in Japan for 9 months of every year-I'm sure I could get her to buy one for me and bring it with her in August-maybe Wally might be interested as well to save duty and shipping costs. Is CE-Net 4.0 that much better than HPC 2000? What about word processing, excel etc. outlook? Are they available on Sig 3's or is it all in Japanese? Maybe this should be under a Sig 3 thread rather than under 'baby pictures'.
Thank-you for your anticipated reply.

wildbill

review in english? not really, but chiark is working on one, i should do another, why not, probably it would be from a different viewpoint so could be interesting

comparison? j728-sig3 comparison pics are on my site, http://izemize.fw.hu.hpc.php and scroll down to the bottom of the page for the pics (zipped, sorry, no thumbnail thingie).

anything else about comparing them? speed, OS? hardware differences? hmmm too tired now to list everything, but if you have any specific questions definitely ask them (and i'll do a better comparison later)

english conversion? 99% for OS/MS apps, and you won't use the specific japanese ones much anyway

i'm interested too, in a second sig3, i need a spare. can wait until august probably.

oh and this isn't off topic IMO, it fits better in handheld pc general but nvm

soo, about office... as i said my personal opinion is that cenet is better at it as you get the viewers in addition to the old pocketword. you may be missing pocketexcel though, who knows, but there are so many alternatives, one of them should be able to replace it sig3 also has the picselviewer: can view doc xls jpg ppt etc...
if you miss pocket access, there's some access manager instead.. never tried it.

outlook: PIM on it can be made english but it won't sync with activesync there are some options, CEAgenda, POS (pocket on schedule), and a few more.

so about office & outlook, hpc2000 has the advantage of having all them in rom out of the box, but cenet isn't worse imo.

Edited by cmonex 2006-02-26 5:01 PM

cmonex:

Thanks for the reply-I will make some enquiries with my niece-actually her husband-who owns several English language schools in Japan-about locating several Sig 3's and their availability, cost etc. and advise. I'm doing some work for him in Canada so I'm sure he would be happy to help me out.

Thanks again.
wildbill

P.S. Sorry but I screwed up when I started this as a new thread as you suggested-I didn't realize I was in "Off Topic"-should have put it in CE Net or HPC 2000? I'm surprised that you found it at all.

Cmonex finds and knows everything I read with interest your comparison, even though I don't have plans for a Sig3, which still remain quite high in price.

Jake

Actually for spreadsheet application, you can download SheetCE from mobileCustom. Haven't tied it myself tho.

Sig3 vs J728...

Size - about the same width, thinner, but deeper (front to back). About the same weight too. Passes my one-hand-grab test easily. The thickness, or lack thereof, gives the device a very sophisticated feeling. The downside is that it does not feel as sturdy as the Jornada, especially when you handheld the base and thumbtype. The flatter shape is also easier to slip into a large pocket, a suitcase, or a bag.

Screen - Sig3 is TFT, 5 inch 800x480, roughly 186 dpi. J728 is DSTN, 6.4 inch 640x240, roughly 106 dpi. That means Sig3 pixels are much much smaller. In other words you have more "screen space" in a smaller physical area. However because it is TFT and the system supports Cleartype, everything is still quite readable. Plus there is a built-in configuration utility that can change the size of fonts and other GUI components (title bars, buttons, etc). I do not think the backlight is any brighter than the Jornada's though, which is a bit disappointing. Ghosting is gone for much better gaming or video viewing. Picture viewing is also improved over the Jornada, although the contrasts/colors is still not satisfying.

Keyboard - the key width is about the same, but the height is taller, so it is a bit easier to type on. Also the number keys are same size as the rest. However it lacks a right shift key, which is my biggest personal complain. It takes a bit getting used to, but the larger keys make up for the lost speed. The action is a bit more clicky than springy, but for me either way works fine.

Expansion - CF Type II + SDIO + USB Host for Sig3, compared to PCMCIA + CF Type I + Serial port for Jornada. It's debatable and perhaps specific to individuals which one is better. But Jornada's CF slot is closed which only accepts memory cards or same sized IO cards. Whereas both slots on Sig3 are open and can be used for IO. IR port is also standard. Sig3 has headphone as well as microphone jack.

Technology - The PXA255 XScale 400 Mhz does have some advantage over the Jornada's SA1110 StrongARM 206 Mhz, but only in high demand applications such as video playback. 64MB of RAM is the same amount in Jornada 728, which is double of 720. The graphics controller is supposedly faster than that in the Jornada, but no thanks to its DSTN screen, I haven't done anything graphically intensive on the Jornada to have an opinion about its abilities anyway.

Battery - Here the Sig3 is beat. The standard battery does surfing with WiFi for maybe 2 hours. However my unit is used, and I haven't done that much playing with it yet, so I'll let others confirm or disagree about that. Backup battery is built-in the device, not accessible like the Jornada's.

Software - CE .Net somehow feels faster than HPC2000 in all operations. Even with the same amount of RAM, having lots of windows open feels a bit less painful than in the old platform. But that could be hardware, so I do not know for sure. IE 5.5 is a huge deal for me - practically any webpage today is compatible. Flash is supported altho the lastest English translation has broken it, we do hope to have it fixed tho. ZeroConfig gives a standard UI for WiFi drivers, which means a lot of "WM2003" WiFi drivers are compatible even tho the OS shell is different - no need to find HPC version or hack PPC drivers now.

Overall - Sig3 is undeniably the winner. Especially since it is now mostly translated to English. The only nagging problem for me is battery life. Otherwise, it is better than Jornada in almost every way.

well i'll repeat here what i said in the other thread just now..

"ah, good choice on the J728.. also on sig3... lol .. but beware the j728 is still better in some important respects than the sig3! (some hpc2000 app compatibility, battery life, and rdp over gprs is of course faster with the J728, lol)"



takwu: wow, cool detailed desc

somehow i disagree with the point about sturdyness. and about the screen quality too, of course. i think it's quite good, but that's me. of course the intermec is better.

i agree about the battery. i have two batteries, one brand new and both last 2-3 hrs with wifi. more like 2 than 3.

cenet is indeed more stable, doesnt your smartbook (SA1110) feel the same way?

you still need to hack ppc wlan drivers but only the OS version needs to be changed

spreadsheet: that one is japanese and it seems to be the same as spreadce

overall conclusion for me? when my j728 was waiting for a little repair (takwu, you remember that one ), i used only sig3. then i again tried j728 and i didn't feel it would be a step backwards or whatever. except maybe IE4, that's slower and less stable - same is true of the whole OS but that wasn't bad to me at all because the sig3 suffers from my bt drivers anyway.. as for IE4 there's netfront...
but i don't do much video, so... so. i cannot choose which is better for me amazing isn't it.




oh i would be really interested in the results of your enquiries. must have a spare sig3 cheap!!! lol (and a j728 but strictly ABB same as the j728 i already have )

i can't move the thread, but you can ask an admin in a PM (C:Amie). it could be in general discussion, but that's IMO.


Edited by cmonex 2006-02-28 7:25 PM