PDAs

[armb]

The PocketPC I bought as a GPS is smaller, lighter, prettier (higher resolution, colour, screen), and more powerful (faster processor, more memory) than my Psion 3a. And easier and faster to sync or backup. And it's a GPS as well.
And it's useless if it isn't recharged practically daily, when the Psion has a battery life of months.
(Battery life is not a problem when using it as an in-car GPS unit. And it is readable, just about, if it isn't very sunny, in the mapcase of my bike bar-bag (with the backlight turning on low when the touch screen is tapped through it). So I don't regret buying it. Haven't used it walking yet, but have got a waterproof case - battery life is obviously going to be a limitation, but it will still be a fun toy, with some use at times.
Trying it the car in Wales last trip I did find one niggle: the track to the cottage isn't in its database, unsurprisingly, but the track it turns off is - but the feature that makes smaller roads vanish if you zoom out makes the small track you are on vanish if you zoom out far enough to see the road at the end of the track. And I had forgotten to download the Memory Map data for the area onto the SD card and just had the Cambridge area.)
Having decided that battery life wins over flashiness, this still leaves the problem of what to do when the Psion hinge flexi-cable inevitably breaks. But I'll worry about that when it happens.

Comments

[muninnhuginn]

I'm not sure where our 3a is lurking--or if it's lurking at all--but M abandoned it in favour of my abandoned 5a (yup, I'm the gadget freak not him) way back, so we may have a spare.

The 5a's behaviour was unforgiveable (even for a machine).

[armb.livejournal.com]

> The 5a's behaviour was unforgiveable (even for a machine).

Do tell. (I was wondering if Nicko had abandoned his 5, since it was his 3a I bought when my original 3 failed.)