PDA Reviews

HP's integrated metal cover is the best Pocket PC cover I've seen. The one offered here is identical to the one the 540 series comes with. I've heard these will be offered in different colors soon, so you may want to check them out first.

These covers are durable and stylish. They also come in a variety of nice colors to spruce up your PDA but only the original gray is listed here. They come with a spare stylus built into the cover underside.

This is a must buy. Its efficient and really stylish. At this price no one can complain.

The experience to use the HP palm top using this product is a great experience, it is so nice to hold and easy to work.

I and my wife simply love it.

This game has Solitare, Video Poker, Backgammon and Word Searches. The backgammon is great and so is the solitare. But the Video poker could have been just straight poker for more challange. The Word searches aren't much of a challange. If you are looking for a boredom filler this is it.

I think the games are cool and that anyone should buy it if they have played the other Hoyle games for the P-C

I ordered the h1940 on Amazon with free shipping and it arrived the next day! (The website said it will take 5-9 business days...). I've had it for 3 weeks now, and I must say this is quite a piece. I shopped around in stores, and this was the smallest handheld device on the market. It works great with my desktop PC, and keeps me very organized. Now that I'm so organized, I don't know what to do with all this free time I discovered I have, so I'm here writing reviews...

It doesn't come with a case or a cover, so you'll have to find one or risk damaging your display screen. I got the Belkin leather case designed for this model for $11. If you're interested in upgrading to Wi-fi, you can get the SD (Secure Digital) Wi-Fi card for about $90-100.

Update: I'm reducing the ratings to 4 stars because of the following: I mentioned earlier that you can go wifi by adding an SD wifi card for $90. I discovered later that the iPAQ H4155 already has built-in wifi and it only cost $400. In addition the H4155 has a 400mhz processor. If you are interested in wifi connectivity I would recommend you buy the H4155 instead of this one. I wanted to save money so I obstained from the h4155, but now I wish I had bought that one instead of this one. Not that this pocket PC isn't good, in fact it's great. But if you want wifi this isn't the right choice.

Had the 1940 but, with the addition of integrated Bluetooth wireless communication and a faster processor, the h1940 is what I really needed. So much power in a machine that weighs just 4.37 ounces and is very small (4.46 x 2.75 x 0.5 in). Also like the upgrade to Microsoft® Windows® Pocket PC 2003 Professional that is included.

I've owned this handheld for only 1 week, have graduated up from an older, different brand handheld.

This device is very relaible, deependable, and intuitive in its functionality.

The device comes packed with software features, downloads programmes quickly from the net, operates seamlessly with my PC, and is surprising fast during processing.

This is a huge jump for me from a visor(palm os), as long as you like windows os you should be really happy with this pda. it is fast, has plenty of storage for apps and the colors are beautiful. it has multimedia, music, video and jpgs. with windows xp, the device appears as a networked resource when synched, which is very neat. i find that i am able to read books on this device, because the graphics are so good, unlike my palm. i have used the bluetooth capability, and it was moderately difficult to configure on my network. it does seem to suck up power, but i have never experienced powere loss. i have had it for 6 months now, and have only had to reboot the thing once, and it was the result of some crappy shareware.

cheers...

I was looking for something to permit my USB-only Powerbook G3 to be able to work well with serial devices. I have a GPS and Cybiko that need a serial interface to function.

Better virtual PC support would be nice. Keyspan used to make a dual mini-din 8 adapter specifically for the Mac. Has anyone had experience with that?

No problems; works great... excellent driver work.

I got this PDA adapter to connect
Mac -> Virtual PC -> PDA Adapter -> Magellan MAP330
The fact that it works at all is amazing!

Now I can download and upload data to my Magellan GPS receiver from my Mac. :) The only thing I couldn't do was update the firmware on the Magellan, so I deducted 1 star for that. A real PC was required. :/

This "PDA" adapter has been great for me. If you are using it for synching your PDA though, a better upgrade may be to get a USB compatible PDA - they're much faster.

This if from my web page, but I don't think Amazon will allow reviewers to include a URL so here it is in text:

Synchronizing a Palm Vx with an OS X iBook

I've recently synched my Palm Vx with my iBook. I'll explain why and how.

My OS X iBook is my personal laptop, and my preferred traveling computer. I also travel with a Palm Vx, so being able to synchronize the Vx with the iBook is very desirable. Unfortunately the one painful surprise about the iBook is the lack of an IR port, and I knew it lacked a serial connector. I thought I'd simply by a new PalmOS device with USB sync or Bluetooth support (the latter would also require buying a Bluetooth USB device), but I've ended up inheriting a number of Palm Vx devices, cables, and peripherals. The Vx has been reliable, some of the newer PalmOS PDA's we've bought have not been. I decided to invest in a Vx sync solution, and hold off on a new PDA until I see what Apple does and whether PalmOS and its licensees recommit to reliability.

There seem to be two choices for how to proceed with a Vx as of Jan 2003. As always the key thing is the quality of the device drivers, and that tends to be very vendor specific. You want to go with a trusted vendor.

MadsonLine sells a USB/IR Port device for OS X: This would mean fewer cables to carry, but it's a new device and I had no reports of it working with a PDA IR sync. I had some trouble getting IR sync working on my Win2K machines, and I find IR sync to be very slow under Windows.

Keyspan sells a USB/Serial PDA Adapter with OS X drivers. I've read reports of success with this device, Keyspan has a great reputation, the device works under Windows as well (though I don't really need it for Windows!) and it seemed simpler.

Despite having yet another cable to carry, I opted for this solution.

I downloaded and installed the latest Keyspan device drivers (of course I ignored the older version on the CD) for OS. I plugged in my Vx and used the Keyspan utility to confirm the system now had a (virtual) serial port. I then downloaded and installed Palm's Desktop 4.0. The HotSync worked quite well. Palm Desktop on the Mac is a bit klunky (ugly) looking, but it seems to work.

I then experimented with iSync and iCal. The iSync installation is clunky, with a separate Palm conduit install step that disables the standard Palm conduits. I got everything working, but it felt like a hack. Usenet and Palm support forums suggested performance was miserable, and since I need to also sync my Palm Vx with my PC Palm Desktop and my workplace Exchange server I thought syncing with the very different iCal and Address apps was a bridge way too far. (Synching one Palm to 3 desktops on two platforms with two very different desktop applications is way beyond the bounds of sanity. It may work for me only because I have experienced all the pitfalls.) I decided to return to the Palm Desktop/Mac (for now).

Since the iSync conduit install removes the Palm conduits, I reinstalled Palm Desktop and they were restored. Subsequent synching appears to be working and the Keyspan device has been trouble free.

Using your Handspring Visor to make a presentation is fairly simple with this module. The module can't do animated text, sounds or special effects (but that's okay because they generally come over as pretty cheesy when overused). The only other drawback was the inability to make changes to the slides contents without doing quite a bit of juggling. One really nice feature is the Mirror program that projects anything on your visor screen. So you could connect the module to a monitor and or projection unit and show others how to use different programs (a few won't show like Wordsmith's true type - I hope this is fixed soon). (...)

The Presenter-to-Go is definitely one of the coolest upgrades for your Visor. This compact system allows you to connect your Visor to a video projector without the need for a laptop. The presentation can come from one or more PowerPoint files, or from a combination of files from any programs on your PC that can print. In other words, one presentation could combine a Word document, spreadsheet, PDF file, and web page. The system includes a Springboard module that fits flush to the Visor, a small VGA cable to attach to the projector cable, and an AC adapter so that the unit is self-powered and doesn't run down the Visor batteries. Your presentations can be stored in your Visor's normal memory, in the module's 2MB of memory, or both.

Margi put a lot of thought into this product, and it shows. The system barely needs written instructions, but the instructions are very thorough and include lots of tips and tricks. Everything works the first time. You get a credit card-sized remote control, and an unusual little pouch in which to carry it and the Springboard module. The AC adapter is the smallest and lightest you've ever seen. They even throw in a gender changer so that you can plug directly into the projector without using the projector cable. You can download updated software from their web site, including a little program that lets you mirror your Visor screen on the projector. That free update is virually a whole new product for free

Perhaps it is sad commentary on the technology field that this would impress me, but this is quite simply a product that promises to do something very cool and then does exactly what it promises.

I thought that it was great. With a 1 gig CF card I could store all of my music and pictures and have ton of memory left over. I really like it because when I need to upgrade to wireless internet or bluetooth all I need to do is get a CF card and plug it in. In the past I had to use two or three secure didital cards and carry them around every where I went, now all I need is one CF card and I am on mt way.

this is my second round w/ an ipaq and find this case both slimmer and more funcitonal. take care to note one slot is type-1 only while the other is type 1/2.

SHORTLY AFTER POSTING THE FOLLOWING REVIEW A NEC REPRESENTATIVE CONTACTED ME TO INFORM ME THAT THEY HAD CHANGED THEIR MIND AND THEY THEN FIXED AND RETURNED MY COMPUTER. IT'S WORKING GREAT.

A warning to anyone who is purchasing a NEC product. NEC has taken possession of my handheld computer and then blamed it on me.

In November of 2001 I eagerly opened my re-manufactured NEC MobilePro 790 which I purchased at a very reasonable price over the internet.

I enjoyed using it. It served as an easily used companion to my main computer. I could easily carry it to me to meetings and write notes. It much easier than a laptop because of it's light weight but more useful than the smaller handhelds because it has a decent sized adequate keyboard.

But there was a problem. I would go to turn it on after being putting it away for a day or two and it would fail to respond.

I called NEC multiple times and they taught me how to reboot it but soon this did not work and then they taught me how to remove the battery and again reboot it. One problem. I would loose all the stored information.

I again called and was advised to be sure to back up and this I faithfully did. Fortunately the computer information was easy to back up with the use of Microsoft ActiveSync.

This worked fine most of the time but was unreliable so I then purchased a CompactFlash for storage.

By being sure I saved my work to the compact flash card and by using Microsoft ActiveSync I no longer lost critical information but I was unable to dependably take advantage of the Mobilepro's other features such as the address book and calender.

I called again and was advised that since my computer was under warranty to send it in for repair.

This I did. I soon received a phone call from Joan Forster stating the cost of repair would not be under warranty and was approximately what I originally paid for it. She explained that the problem was water damage. When I tried to explain that the problem started from the date of purchase this NEC representative was extremely rude and objected to listen. When I asked to be transferred to her supervisor she said that she was the senior supervisor and refused to connect me to anyone else. I Later contacted Michael Rains but he simply referred the matter back to Joan Forster who again refused to consider the possibility that the handheld was defective from date of purchase. When I delayed agreeing to the repair price and then I did not accept the defective product back she wrote me a letter stating that it was now their property.

NEC still has my handheld.

Just a warning. It may be a very useful tool but if it is defective they will blame it on you and not cover it under warranty.

This machine is great!, I'm sorry to here about the other persons experience and i'll think about it in the future , but I have to say that this machine is simple yet fantastic it has most of the features of my highend laptop but none of the hassles of use although one thing I would like to point out is that I was unable to sync it with my laptop because my laptop doesn't have serial ports and also I have Windows Xp and some people are saying xp won't work with active sync but I have a good solution for this problem ,you can get a Compact Flash card reader for $7-$20 and a flash card for $20 AND TRANSFER ANY DATA TO ANY COMPUTER , I hope all the people with HP Jornadas are listening too because many people give up as soon as they hear NO USB . now back to what I was saying get one of these , it is about triple the size of a Palm Pilot so if you want something tiny this isn't for you but if you do alot of data input you'll love it as much as other Mobilepro users trust me ,Oh and be prepared for people interupting you to say how great the thing is good luck .