Received the Casio Cassiopeia PA-2400W

I have an old FieldCentrix and I have yet to ever run down that battery - which goes hours and hours. The battery I got with the Hitachi Eplate lasts longer than 2 hours. And the Eplate is as old as this Casio.

So what is the solution. Do I need to get NIMH rechargeable batteries for the PA-2400W? How long will those last?

Edited by quiche 2006-09-27 10:32 PM

this really depends on how the battery was handled. it doesn't like sitting discharged for years. (though when new, never used, it'll stand this better than later)

per tenjeangosi's request for a photo of the device

Hey thanks, that think looks pretty darn cool .. I think I may get one after I get the MobilePro 900c (I hope)

It looks good in the picture. But frankly the backlight on the HP 360lx is better - and so is the battery life. And so was playing songs. The Casio has a very bad sound, considering the very visible speaker on the left front of the device. And that is using Xaudio MP3 player - which is the lightest player on the CPU.

Also programs I can load on the same sh3, but 2.0 HP 360lx, like BUseful utilities, I can't get to work on this device. The poor sound quality and this problem with programs indicates, maybe, that the 2.11 OS is a heavy load on this Casio.

Considering all this - it might be better to go with the PA-2400U with the 2.0 OS. Maybe, CEGeek, can give us a comparison between the two.

Well, I have before on another thread, but here goes:

First of all, minor detail, but the desktop screen shown in the pic above is that of the PA-2400U - it's the standard CE 1.0/CE 2.0 logo. The PA-2400W has the H/PC Pro logo (Windows CE Handheld PC Professional Edition) on the desktop.

The PA-2400W's primary upside is the ability to use H/PC Pro software - though this is admittedly not a particularly large advantage with its lack of a keyboard, monochrome screen, and less-than-perfect speaker sound. But some of the H/PC Pro apps are useful, like Micro Cheng's Power Toys for 2.11. Other useful apps that work in it but not in the PA-2400U: Dexxta's IRC client, Splatter (which, as cmonex has pointed out, has some issues in MIPS but not in the PA-2400W's SH3) and JulioAngelOrtiz' MobileCubed game, M3ingo (useful for passing the time and getting some mental exercise). The onboard Web browser (PIE 3) is somewhat better than the CE 2.0 version. (And more WiFi cards exist with 2.11-compatible drivers than with 2.0-compatible drivers.)

The PA-2400U, on the other hand, comes with a couple of useful utilities built in: smARTcommand and smARTwriter, and QuickNotes (a simple write-on-screen notepad app). smARTcommand is an early voice-command application launcher utility that works surprisingly well. smARTwriter is somewhat like Calligrapher, allowing one to write letters on the screen, which the app translates into typed letters. (That one doesn't work so well - it inserts a space after each letter for reasons that are a mystery to me.)

Both suffer from lack of a hardware keyboard. However, iBIZ' KeySync keyboard, which connects to the H/PC through the H/PC's serial cable, has drivers compatible with both models. (I've tried it with mixed results, however. Input after keystrokes is rather inconsistent. Maybe I'm not pressing the keys hard enough while touch-typing.)

Overall, yes, I'd say the PA-2400U definitely gets more use by me.

Is the sound better on the U model? And can you install more programs? You listed HPC Pro programs, mostly games. But what of other types?

I actually found the sound fairly decent on the U playing MP3s with Hum (though the program itself is rather buggy). But the sound isn't very loud, even at full volume. It also plays WAV files reasonably well. Can't say for sure if it's better than the W, though.

Any 2.11 H/PC will run more programs than a 2.0 H/PC. But I admit that I haven't tried many thus far on my W. (I forgot to point out, too, that I've had my ups and downs with QuickNotes on the U - the screen doesn't respond as well as one would like in order to write readable notes, and if the screen calibration is even slightly off, it makes it worse. You have to write large for best results - an adjustment for me since I write rather small.)

Try this older version of Tillansoft Pnotepad. Or at least I think it is the older version (with the mess my files are in) - and this one installs on wince 2.0.

I hear you there. I just shoved everything in a folder named "wince" (no jokes, please ) before I reformatted my notebook PC's hard drive. This time I'm organizing it by OS version to tidy it up a bit.

Please let me know if that is the one that works on 2.0. Otherwise, I have it in another folder.

I'm not sure what version quiche attached, but just to note - PocketNotepad 2.1 was the last version to have support for CE 2.0.

It won't install on my PA-2400U - when I tap on the CAB, I get an error message saying that it is "not a valid Windows CE Services CAB file."

Then try this one.

Let me know if this one works. If not I have one more in my HP 360lx folder.