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Handhelds Hardware

64MB Compaq IPAQ On Sale -- Or Not? 122

Posted by timothy from the noooooiiice dept.
jaredcat writes: "The until-recently rumored new 64MB IPAQ handheld with improved expansion-card capabilities finally went on sale today at Compaq Direct for $649. Seeing as the lesser 3650 model can't currently be found on the street for love or money (I've seen it listed as high as $1000), I'm grabbing my 3670 while I still can." For some reason, I can't find the higher-end one on the site -- am I alone? With 64MB, this beats all but my most recent computer. Pop in my Merlin wireless card, and I can roam the city talking to myself all day? Excellent.
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64MB Compaq IPAQ On Sale -- Or Not? More

64MB Compaq IPAQ On Sale -- Or Not?

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  • formatting error? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Did someone forgot to close a italics tag? Why is (most of) the rest of the mainpage in italics?

  • Re:Shopping cart session ID (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually it's $3,224,408.00 right now... Some of their ASP scripts are crashing with such a high dollar amount.

    cpqUtil error '800a0006'

    Error in object Cart, method Commit - Overflow

    /include/HeaderContent.asp, line 28
  • Yeah, get a Palm, Visor or VR3 is you want a PDA. If you want a Pocket Computer, get an iPAQ. With my 340MB udrive running the HHLinux Initimate distro (see handhelds.org), I have a complete Debian box in a handheld package. BTW, the PCMCIA sleeve has it's own battery. PCMCIA cards don't run down the iPAQ's battery. Backup batteries are *NOT* hard to make (or buy). Cpt_Kirks

  • jesus christ! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    who plans on a (semi) consumer shopping site to be SUDDENLY SLASHDOTTED. i mean, c'mon.
  • Write shit Perl code that doesn't handle this stuff and wait for "community peer review" to kick in. :)

    - A.P.

    --
    Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?

  • 8 hours? That's it? That's pitiful. Palm V's have internal batteries that get a day or two of continuous use, and a LOT more standby time. And they're 2/3 the thickness of previous Palms or less, which are (as others have admitted) significantly smaller than almost any CE device.

    And yes, I guessed it might have an internal battery. But even with Li-Ion or Li-Poly, there's still a limit on how much power you can store before the thing gets huge. As I said - PC cards cause noticeable drain on laptops, where the batteries themselves have 3-4 (or more) times the volume of an entire iPaq, let alone its batteries.

    And even if this PCMCIA sleeve had its own battery, it would have to be HUGE to supply a decent amount of power (see above).

    My WorkPad fits in my pocket easily with no effort. It carries full maps of my own town and two others, carries movie listings at all times, and all of the usual addresses, etc. All in only 2M of memory. (I do wish I had more - but 8M would be more than I'd ever need. That could store an obscene number of maps...)

    Browsing from a PDA would be the most painful experience I can imagine... Screen is way too small.

    If you REALLY need that obscene kind of power, buy a nice, cheap Palm, and a used laptop. You'll spend about the same price as these super-CE devices, and have a LOT more functionality. Until there's the wireless bandwidth available for videoconferencing (available on WLANs, but not in general), there's absolutely no need for these PDAs on steriods, they're a waste of money.
  • I wasn't saying that the Newton was a bad piece of hardware. It just wasn't suitable to the PDA market, where it got destroyed by the significantly smaller and battery-saving Palms. Some people may have grown an attachment to it. But the majority (such as myself) did not, which is why it died. (Yes, I had a Newton - I hardly ever used it. It was slow, ate batteries, and HUGE.)

    Having a huge load of features on a PDA is useless if it doubles or triples the price of the unit and >90% of the target market doesn't really want it.

    Yeah, these look cool to geeks like us. But the primary market for these devices are businessmen to whom geek-factor such as "Cool, I can play MP3s, too!" is useless. An 8M PalmOS-based device is enough to more than satisfy the needs of most execs who need a PDA.

    2M PalmOS-based devices are more than enough for a college or HS student who wants a bit of help getting organized. And unlike the iPaq, etc, Palms are affordable for the majority of college and HS students - I have lots of non-geek friends with Palms who use them regularly. They would NEVER think of getting anything more expensive, because they don't even use their Palms to their full potential.

    The above two markets are what really make money, not the small geek minority.
  • No, don't buy a Neo 25.

    Buy an MP3 CD player, and a CD burner.

    It will be more portable, and with the extra $100+, you can get (worst-case if you're REALLY lazy about shopping) 65 gigs of storage. :)

    Solid-state MP3 is a waste of money, and will be for a long time to come.

  • What's the big deal... (Score:5)

    by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7NO@SPAMcornell.edu> on Monday April 16, 2001 @01:01PM (#287749) Homepage
    I see these super-handhelds going the way of the Newton.

    The Newton was the same as the iPaq - the handheld that tried to do too much. And look at it's fate.

    Palm, OTOH, keeps things simple. This results in devices that are:
    a) Much less expensive
    b) Smaller (Size was one of the main factors in the Newton's death. And all of these CE devices are larger than even Palm's largest.)
    c) Power-conserving. Batteries in a Palm last forever. How often do you have to change the batteries in one of these iPaqs?

    As to power consumption: For one, more memory = more power consumed. 8MB Palms have higher current draw than 2MB ones. Not by too much... But 64 megs?

    PCMCIA - PCMCIA cards can cause a noticeable drop in battery life in a laptop with a huge Li-Ion battery, what do you think they're going to do to a handheld on AAAs? (Even AAs - But as soon as you move to AAs, your handheld is losing any size advantage it might have had.)

    These handhelds are "cool", but I don't see them as anything more than that. My WorkPad (Palm III) suits me just fine, the only thing I wish I had was 8MB of memory, not 2. But 64 is ridiculous. (Eventually, I may solder in some bigger chips... :)

  • Re:Linux (Score:4)

    by Dicky ( 1327 ) <slash3@vmlinuz.org> on Monday April 16, 2001 @03:02PM (#287750) Homepage
    This reply is coming to you from an iPAQ running Linux over an 802.11 connection :-)
    I'm writing it in vim in an xterm (actually rxvt) which was spawned by w3m, using GPLed handwriting recognition software. 'uname -a' gives:
    Linux ipaq 2.4.0-test11-rmk1-np3 #67 Tue Jan 2 16:46:11 EST 2001 arm4l unknown
    Check www.handhelds.org for the full story.

  • Grab yourself a new m500 or m505 (later this month) and a 64mb MMC or SD card (they'll hit 1gb by the end of the year).
  • Whipperschnapper...

    I remember when 64MB ALONE cost that much..

    (Hell, I remember when 64KB was that much :pp Gotta love progress...)

    Your Working Boy,
    - Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
  • Ack, I know SprintPCS handles data (uglily) in NYC, and there's Bell Mobilite digital roaming in Montreal, but when I was there I didn't get Wireless Web.. Maybe Data works, check out the SPCS/BM sites..

    Best of luck!
    Your Working Boy,
    - Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
  • When we were all working on machines of 16k/32k happily, 640k wasn't obviously bollocks in much the same way that 64meg obviously isn't bollocks to you now.
  • What's the battery life like on these things, particularly when running a wireless card?

    Still, 64MB of storage would be awfully sweet on a Palm...

    Jon Acheson
  • I know, and I could have, what, a gigabyte of secondary storage with a TRGPro and an IBM CompactFlash minidrive.

    Onboard ram would be cooler than the secondary storage, though, because it would probably use less power, and because it would be real memory you could use without the hassle of accessing the storage media.

    Jon
  • Why lug around a 2 lb brick when you can carry around your iPAQ with wireless (or wired) Internet access, a full-sized keyboard, and the processor power and memory to make good use of both?
    The Stowaway keyboards are neat, but honestly once you have that, plus the palmtop, plus the carrying cases, the total package is too big to just stick in a pocket, so that that you lose the carry-it-anywhere benefits of having a palmtop in the first place. YMMV, I suppose.

    Jon Acheson

  • The BIOS is actually stored on a small partition on the beginning of the hard drive, which you probably blissfully FDISKed away. Normally you just press F10.

    My DeskProXL once had NT, 98, OS/2, Linux, and Solaris installed simultaniously, and the config partition did not affect normal operation at all.

    There was a good reason for this when Compaq made EISA machines - I never quite understood the reasoning for the ISA version, but if you understood how it works, it's really not worth hating.

    The biggest problem I've had is a period 3-4 years ago when Compaq wouldn't ship a standard configuration for a particular model. You would get a "Compaq Video Adapter" or "Compaq NETIntellegant Ethernet Adapter", which in reality was any one of 10 things. That made supportability a real bitch, but I think they've fixed that issue with their newer boxes.
    --
  • Forgot to mention that - their laptops suck shit too, or at least have since about 1994.
    --
  • Well, in my experience "standard" BIOSes (and by this you mean the Phoenix BIOS) have been generally less reliable in terms of hardware detection and APM/ACPI support. I'd take a Compaq or Dell BIOS anyday, or (as on this machine) the "real" IBM BIOS.
    --
  • My first /. death threat! Next time, try quality name brand explosives instead of that 'work-alike' cheap clone stuff.
    --
  • It's not technically correct, but people use the term "BIOS" interchangably with "BIOS configuration user interface". As Pinball Wizard said: "you hit DEL typically to get into the bios". I think we all understand the difference.

    But then, as pointed out, I never shut up. HAND.
    --
  • As others pointed out, the Zip was already on the market, and pretty popular among Mac users (no/slow Internet + Graphic Design = need for removable media).

    There was a sort of handshake agreement between major PC companies to standardize on the LS-120 in 1995 or so. Then a big cost-cutting war started between Compaq and Dell, and they kinda forgot about adding any bells+whistles. Anyway, the place I worked got a pallet full of Compaqs with LS-120s at no extra cost one month. The next shipment was back to standard 1.44 drives.

    Since then, it just missed it's mark. Back in those days, hard drives were 540MB and 1G were just shipping, so 120MB was compartively a lot of storage. Now days, it seems most consumer machines ship with CD-RW, so there you go.
    --

  • Re:All things Compaq [slightly offtopic] (Score:3)

    by IntlHarvester ( 11985 ) on Monday April 16, 2001 @01:25PM (#287764) Journal
    I'm curious what Compaq products you've had experience with.

    It's true that their consumer desktops (Presario) line is pretty piss-poor, but I've always found their corporate stuff reliable and their server stuff excellent.

    Anyway, they're a big company - so big that maybe they don't realize that they're tarnishing their once top-of-the-industry reputation with a bunch of young users with those cheap crap home units.

    My understanding is that the iPaq handheld comes out of the old DEC part of Compaq - take that for what it's worth.
    --
  • Yeah and when I saw my first TRS-80 Model I at the local Radio Shack, I was told "it comes with 2 kilobytes of RAM, and you can get a 4 kilobyte version... but you don't NEED anything more than 2 K for ANYTHING."

    Wake up. Those who forget the past are forever doomed to repeat it.
  • >> support for 4GB userland process

    Does this mean that someone actually has a patch for 2.4 to make the memory management suck a little less? AFAIK, 2.4 still requires 1G address space for kernel, meaning any user program can only use 3G it self. Additionally, the address space is so fragmented, the largest contiguous chunk is about 2G. Really bites if you have a 4G system that you would like to use all on one process.

    Any further info on this claim?

    "My data's lost in a tree!! Save it! Save it!"
  • Compaq iPaq 3670 [warehouse.com] which "street" wise is listing for $650, can not be in too high a demand (other than people electronically rubber-necked to see a PDA with 64MB). Yet, the Compaq Direct site is choking.It is one thing for the small fries to get slashdot smashed. I think is it poor planning/design/whatever on the part of a company the size of Compaq to choke and sputter. RedHat with its new release of 7.1 is probably getting hammered harder, but atleast they are cleanly surviving it from what I can see (no I have not gotten a copy from any of the mirrors, even though I am watching them religiously for the images to appear).Companies, such as Compaq, should have a better idea of what kind of traffic they should be able to handle and should plan accordingly. Right now their web presence shows them to be a less than solid player.

  • 64mb? (Score:1)

    by Levine ( 22596 )
    With 64MB, this beats all but my most recent computer.

    All but your most recent computer has less than 64 MB of storage space? No wonder all of my submissions get rejected...

    Cheers,
    levine
  • The big problem I see is battery life. The original Itsy dealt with this by having a cholesteric display, I think, so that it could be powered off but still display data.
    That was actually done with a PLD [computer.org].

    As the technology (hardware & software) improves to take more account of power, I think these things will really take off.
    Agreed. A first step might be knowing how much power your system is consuming [wearablegroup.org].

  • I'm not sure. Ex-Palm user, now a Psion user.

    Yes, the Palm is cheaper, smaller and runs for longer on the batteries. Personally, I felt it was designed to a cost - and it showed. I found the screen too small for realistic use while I'm happy carrying round my Psion 5. Yes it's larger, yes it doesn't fit in my shirt pocket - but I nver felt comfortable carrying the Palm that way, and tend to have a larger bag with me anyway. It lives there very happily.

    Yes, the batteries run forever, but I'm not convinced that it's a significant boost. You can probably still pull a week or two of average use with these things, so what does it matter by that point? If it gave you two days rather than one it'd be worth it, but the law of diminishing returns kicks in. That's plenty.

    I honestly found Palms very limiting. I've never done more than played with a WinCE machine so can't comment heavily on them, but it can't be that limited - and doesn't look it from what I've seen. Why Palms have survived still baffles me, they're cheap and nasty.

  • If all you want is to roam the streets all day talking to yourself, all you need is some magic mushroom tea. Why waste money?

  • I have a quick question.

    My experience with Comaq has been pretty piss-poor. In fact, I've said in the past that I would never, ever buy anything from Compaq again. I've held to this promise for over five years now.

    So my question is, how does the IPAQ rate? I've heard lots of random stuff, but nothing definitive. People seem to like it. But it's from Compaq. How does this balance out? Is it worth calling off my vendetta against Compaq because they have actually come out with a decent product?

    ---
  • 1. The original design of the "sleeve" system was a novel solution to upgrading, but an IPAQ with all the goodness to get it really functional, such as a PCMCIA adaptor for GSM access, a Flash Card for Microdrive access, all make it one big and heavy device. It most definitely becomes a non-Pocket PC with the big sleeves and addons (there is no standard expansion port, you *must* us ea sleeve).

    2. With the addons, such as the PCMCIA reader, the battery life is quite appalling. Standard life is around 5-8 hours of continuous use, witha Microdrive, and listening to MP3s, expect maybe 3-4 hours, tops. You might not have a problem with recharging your Pocket PC every night, but PalmOS users can expect weeks out of a set of battery charges, not hours. Don't expect to go on a trip and use it a lot if you don't have AC access.

    3. The CPU is 206MHz, and is fast enough to play 15fps WMV video, so you could play WMV encoded video on it on a plane, train, etc., . A 15fps Star Trek episode is around 45MB in size, no ads. This, like Mp3, chews battery though.

    4. Compaq designed the controller badly - it cannot do diagonal movement, although it looks like it can. They have refused to fix this with a Flash upgrade, which only IPAQ of all the PocketPC CE 3.0 devices can do. As yet, game playign is far better on the Casio, which unfortunately has less RAM as standard and a slower CPU, but has real 8 way controlling.

    In short, if you need a PDA, get a Visor for under $200 and wait for real next-gen devices to come around, unless you have a) excess cash, b) are an early adoptor. The only advantages an IPAQ has over a Visor are that it looks cooler, and the potential to play MP3, video,e tc., but that all comes at a cost - lack of portability, which is the original purpose of PDAs.

    And that's the bottom line, 'cos I say so.

  • Iomega purposely made Zip drives so they couldn't read floppy drives. They wanted to make sure people purchased zip media, that's where they make all their money. The zip drives have a next to nothing margin.

    That doesn't sound very realistic. Most people with a Zip drive will also have a floppy drive. They choose Zip media, if they do, for capacity, not because it's the only thing that'll work in their drives. If the Zip drive could read floppy disks you just wouldn't need a floppy drive any more, it wouldn't have much impact on what media people used.
  • I've been using a 64Mb iPAQ with a PCMCIA adapor and WaveLAN card to run some of my PhD. stuff on, because I'm doing low-power wireless applications stuff. I run the handhelds.org Linux on it and build stuff in Python and I have to say that it rocks.

    The big advantage I can see of device like this is that they take up the functionality of MP3 players and other wearable devices and put them in a single, flexible unit. Also, I can take the thing home, work on it, albeit via a client PC to view the screen on, and then walk in to the lab and log back in there, again from a dumb client.

    The big problem I see is battery life. The original Itsy dealt with this by having a cholesteric display, I think, so that it could be powered off but still display data. Battery life of an identical unit to mine used as an MP3 player and Palm-style device is about 3 days, while mine gives about 6 hours with Linux on it. So it's a cradle-baby. :(

    As the technology (hardware & software) improves to take more account of power, I think these things will really take off.

    But then I would say that, because that's the subject of my PhD. So I suppose I should really have said "biased opinion" in the title...

  • Shopping cart session ID (Score:5)

    by conio ( 39484 ) on Monday April 16, 2001 @01:15PM (#287776) Homepage
    Looks like the poster didn't remove his session ID from the link. Now all of Slashdot seems to be adding to a universal cart.

    At one point the total was well over $150,000.

  • Browsing from a PDA would be the most painful experience I can imagine... Screen is way too small
    I beg to differ. It is too small for some of sites

    If the site can't adapt itself to a palmtop screen, that's poor Web design, not a fault of the palmtop. The specifications for the Web were carefully designed to be device (and resolution) independsnt.

  • An I wriming fern an Upper Nenton Masking Pond 1 oo. Any wander they stoop ed marking these?
  • One with a spell checker, right?
    --
  • I love my Palm .... but there isn't a decent browser out there for it.

    IE on the Pocket-PC's works pretty well....

    BrowseIt on the Palm is pretty broken. The <noscript> tag don't work.

    Find me a real browser for the Palm .. please.

  • IPAQ can be upgraded to 64mb (Score:4)

    by alee ( 64786 ) on Monday April 16, 2001 @01:26PM (#287781)
    For those that already have IPAQs, a brave and enterprising soul has already found a way to upgrade 32mb IPAQs to 64mb. He will be providing the service shortly, and will provide a 90-day warranty on the upgrade!

    Visit http://www.times2tech.com/pocketpc.html [times2tech.com] to get on a long waiting list.

  • Not New (Score:5)

    by Puk ( 80503 ) on Monday April 16, 2001 @12:45PM (#287782)
    Roaming the city talking to yourself all day, that is. People have been doing it for years. I usually give them my spare change as I walk by...

    -Puk
  • Up until recently I've had a Compaq Armada 4160T (designed for the corporate market). It was the worst piece of shit laptop I've ever owned. Broke down constantly, and it had the curious habit of going to a black screen that was only recoverable by removing the battery. I've since gotten a Toshiba Tecra 8100, and it is sweet. 850 Mhz, 3D acceleration and as a Linux machine it rocks.

    That being said, I love my iPaq and have had no problems with it at all.

    -Vercingetorix

  • Re:What's the big deal... (Score:3)

    by FattMattP ( 86246 ) on Monday April 16, 2001 @07:39PM (#287784) Homepage
    the only thing I wish I had was 8MB of memory, not 2. But 64 is ridiculous.
    I totally agree. Anything above 640KB is just silly. Who'd need more than that?
  • Yes, RadioShack. I just ordered a 3650 from them last week. They use a diffrent ordering system, and tend to have them available ALOT of the time. This link [radioshack.com] is to the 3635, but they do have the 3650 in stock. Call them up and ask them. I've had to order several, and each time I called the Rat Shack it was there.

    ----------------------------------
  • The sub-notebook market (libertio/original Sony picturebook)

    As a PDA, it is following in the Newton's path.

  • A few mentions of Linux but not one bash of Windows CE. Is it possible that slashdotters actually like WinCE? Whoa...
  • well, combine the ipaq with mushroom tea, and you can watch all the pretty colors swirl on the screen while you talk to yourself
  • did anyone else notice the shopping cart system go all screwy?..
    when I first got there, it appeared that I'd chosen to buy 999 USB Cradles..not much use with out the iPaq..then after a reload, I had one of everything..
    CpQ really should gimme a call & get me to sort out their site..

    anyway, incase you couldn't find it on the site, use 222527-001 as the QuickAccessCode..hmm which also doesn't work, as I've just discovered..

    CpQ..call me..

  • come on, ya pansy..Have at you!
    ..
    ..
    alright, we'll call it a draw..Oh, I see..Running away are you??..Come back here & take what's coming to you..I'll bYte your legs off!!
  • oops..replied to the wrong one
  • wait a sec..no I didn't...SlashCode Maker..why aren't .sig's shown in the preview..
  • its all about salvia my man
  • I have had nothing but good experiences with Compaq, but I don't touch their personal line. The iPaq desktops at the office, proliant servers, deskpro systems, they've all been terrific. Also, their support is top notch. I can call up at 3 AM, get a useful person on the phone, and if I need a part, they FedEx it out quickly. They've been tremendously helpful for all my systems.

    Alex
  • Grin I don't. A friend of mine used to work in their outsourced Presario group, I wouldn't dare trust THAT support group. Good friend, but a screwball. They have a group in S. Florida of random kids that know computers and have drug problems.

    However, I have called Compaq twice in the middle of the night with technical problems, and I was quite happy with the service I received. We were having problems getting rackmounting kits for our NON-Compaq servers, and they shipped out, overnight, kits for their machines that helped our problems.

    Their support has made me a loyal customer, and I am happy to say so. Dell on the otherhand, has shown itself to be worthless to me. We had their paid next-day service, and it took me 5 days of 2hr+ hold times to get someone to actually come out, and he screwed it up anyways.

    I'll never buy another Dell product, and I'll always get my NT servers from Compaq.

    Alex
  • I just bought a 3650 last week, I don't think I've ever had so much trouble. Good luck finding one now.

    Price Watch [pricewatch.com] helps.

  • No, it isn't. Look at the first post. As any fool can see:
    Posted by timothy on Monday April 16, @03:43PM
    from the noooooiiice dept.
    jaredcat writes:

    is not italicized. On the further posts, all text except the headlines are italicized. Furthermore, clicking on the "Read More" link for any of the news items will reveal that the text is not intended to be italicized.

    Through basic logic one can deduce that the error lies in the "64MB Compaq IPAQ On Sale".

  • Ipaq + 1GB IBM Microdrive (Score:3)

    by Gregoyle ( 122532 ) on Monday April 16, 2001 @05:19PM (#287798)
    Am I the only one who has thought of this? I do realize that the whole combination (if you buy the newest Ipaq) would cost about USD 1200, but can you imagine using that with Mp3s or Mpeg movies/TV shows?

    Anyone with a digital tuner on their video card could record their favorite TV shows, compress them and watch them the next day on the train to work (or write a script that compresses and uplinks to the microdrive automatically...). Also, the Microdrives are interchangeable, so you have effectively unlimited storage (well it is limited by the size of your wallet of course).

    If you ask me, this stuff's starting to get simply insane, if we can do this *now*, imagine a year, or even two years from now.

  • Its not really a problem, since for the iPAQ to be really useful, its best to sync it at least once a day, and the battery recharges pretty fast while you sync.

    and

    Plus, when you start putting Linux on it, and get one of these, the iPAQ becomes a serious competitor to a full-fledged laptop.

    I doubt it's much of a competitor if it requires a sync once a day to be "really useful." I mean, I've never synced my Newton- never. I have connected it to my desktop a couple times, to install packages that I had archived, rather than ones publically available on FTP or web servers. Aside that, my Newton is "really useful" just fetching stuff on-line using a modem or ethernet card. Not to mention the only time using a keyboard is much more useful than HWR is when I've worked on a German assignment. The HWR can recongnize umlauts and s-sets, but I'm not used to writing them...
  • Browsing from a PDA would be the most painful experience I can imagine... Screen is way too small.

    I beg to differ. It is too small for some of sites, I read quite a bit of news and other informations on my Newton in a web browser, [home.net] which has a 480 x 320 screen. The iPAQ has a res of 320x240 (I believe), and while that's a little small, it's still large enough to be useful.
  • All I want to do is hook an IPaq up to my cell phone so I can telnet to the servers at work when I'm at lunch... is this possible? Pointers?
  • I've only got an LS-120 and Zip drive in my PC

    The answer is in your own post. If Iomega made Zip drives able to read floppies in the begining, it would be game over for floppy and LS-120's both. I like LS-120 because it is a fast floppy but it came on the scene after Zip was pretty entrenched.

  • Well it has a 12 bit screen rather than a 16 bit one...it has no built in expandability...it cannot recognize more than one button press at a time...and has a dust problem...the new ones now have a color problem....and oh yea it looks like something out of the matrix which makes it l33t despite the problems.
  • Looks like timothy forgot to close his italic command! :) Seeing slashdot in all italics reminds me of my early days learning HTML and how I made all my webpages bold or italic accidentally all the time...
  • I can surf the web wirelessly for two weeks on a single AA Alkaline supermarket brand battery using my RIM 950 pager.

    Of course, I don't have colour.

    But then again, my battery only cost $0.50.

    Hard choice... But I think I'll stick with stuff that uses AAs for now.

  • With 64 MB of RAM festival [ed.ac.uk] could be ported to the thing.

    Then any book on project Gutenberg [gutenberg.net] could be read aloud.

  • ah yes, now I remember. That there is absolutely no excuse for having a bios that is inferior to a standard bios loaded on the hard drive, rather than in the CMOS, where it belongs. A good bios has hard drive detection, and can switch between LBA and normal mode. Also, some of the good ones have a low level formatting utility.

    You mean to say Compaq still does this? No, I would never again buy a machine like that, and I would vigorously recommend to any IT department I worked for or consulted for that they steer clear of proprietary bioses like Compaqs.

  • Actually, if he has been boycotting Compaq for 5 years, he could have had the same negative experience with their desktops as I did.

    They came with a non-standard bios. To get to the bios, you had to load 2 floppies into memory. That sucked royally compared to a standard PC where you hit DEL typically to get into the bios.

    The systems we had had Compaq's first-generation SuperDisks, which were shaped like floppies but held 120MB. The drives were horribly bug-ridden, and we(with way too much effort) replaced them with standard floppy drives.

    Their boards, drives, and connectors almost invariably had pins blocked so you couldn't replace their floppy drives or hard drives or connectors with standard off-the-shelf hardware.

    I too swore I'd never buy a Compaq after dealing with this crap. Anyone know if things have improved in the last 5 years?

  • Personally I would love to have one of these sexy machines for myself. The downside is definitly the price. For 650 I could get myself an OK laptop, and I can do a hell of a lot more on it. I wish compaq could find a way to cut costs on these, I think they could easily surpass the palms.
  • I have the same combo, using GoAmerica's Go.Web, and my web browsing has been very fast. It seems faster than the AirCard+Sony VAIO combo I also use. I love my Ipaq 3650. I paid $670 for mine new (it was really in demand, and I had the cash) and I love it. Now I want the 2 PC Card sleeve so I can stick a 256MB memory card in there and really use the MP3 capabilities. The single PC Card sleeve for the ipaq has its own LiOn battery in addition to the one built into the main unit. I've web browsed, e-mailed, AceBartendered, and WorkOrder'd all day and didn't use up more than a tiny bit of battery life. And for the past 6 years I've said NO to Compaq. In fact, the last compaq I owned was the old luggable with the green 7" CRT and 2 5.25" floppies.
  • iPAQs don't have removable batteries. I have one, and it gives me over 8 hours of use on one full recharge.
  • Ah, all these smart people making all these silly assumptions.

    Answer me, oh you all knowing ones, if the bios is on a "small partition at the beginning of the drive", how the hell do you load it? You would need the bios to load the bios.

    The BIOS is not on disk. The BIOS is in ROM. The only thing that is on disk is a Windows-based interface used to access the bios.

  • Visit http://www.times2tech.com/pocketpc.html to get on a long waiting list.

    Just as a note, these guys have been around for a while. I believe they got their start replacing the clock crystal on the HP200LX (Hewlett-Packard's MS-DOS v5.0 handheld PC) with one twice as fast (hence the name), and doubling (or more) the memory in those old boys. I have always heard good things about their work, and the fact that they've been at it a while may encourage some of the less trusting types out there.

    P.S. I have no association with these guys, nor have I used their services. I just got hit with a wave of nostalgia for my old handheld (still runs) when I followed that link. YMMV.
  • I can do this today with my Nokia and the Palm. The IR port works quite well - and I can actually carry the combo on me.
    Needless to say this is also a considerably cheaper solution...

    I could do this today with my Psion Revo (much better than any of the Palms if you ask me, and about the same price to boot), if I'd had the forethought to buy a phone with an IrDA adapter. I've found that (in the US at least) finding a reasonably priced phone with an ir port on it is far and away the most difficult part of solving the equation.
  • Your MP3 player as well as your PDA? What about you personal TV, have a look at www.snapstream.com 64 megs makes snapstream a very usable product, I watch last nights simpsons on the train each morning.
  • Roaming between Montreal and New York City, I was wondering if anyone knew of a wireless solution for Internet accesss that will work in both of the formentioned cities?
  • Our computer at home gets used pretty much only for Email and nickjr.com. My wife wanted something that went with her IKEA furniture. Sue me.
  • Check out this Ad for 64k [adflip.com]for 1500 bucks.

  • 64 Megs on a Palm OS is possible with Handspring Visor. You can buy yourself a 64 meg smart media card for $99 and and a Mem Plug [handspring.com] module for $50.
  • I think timothy forgot to close an html [i] (triangle brackets) tag as the whole page is now in italics.
  • stop talkling to yourself.

  • WOW! (Score:1)

    by Dest ( 207166 )
    64 whole MB of ram, wait... how much HD does this thing have? Wait...flash cards?? Damn this thing is crappy. Oh yeah, it sucks!
  • My understanding of the power problem running linux on an iPaq is that the deep-sleep mode was broken in the linux kernel. When you press the on/off button again in CE it doesn't really turn the device off. It just shuts the screen off and hibernates. Shutting it off completely via the switch on the bottom wouldn't be too productive if you constantly lost data and settings. *shrug* Comparisons between an iPaq and a Palm is like comparing apples to oranges. Now I've never had a palm, never cared for them, but I've not seen someone running a color palm constantly playing games or music. All of which wears the battery down. Usually I leave my backlight off most of the time which greatly extends the life.
  • Some cell phones are IRDA compliant. Barring this, you'd most likely need either a C/F sleeve or a PCMCIA sleeve and a C/F adapter, go to mobileplanet.com and look up CMDA modems. Or perhaps one of the other cellular modem types depending upon where you live and what type of service is available. For myself I'd need to pick up a socket communications C/F card that plugs into my startac and does CMDA. That said, I'm not sure how many of the modems work with linux.
  • *click* *click* *click*

    "You need a grave-yard to bury dead drives..."
  • If I'm not mistaken, you can get one of those PC card expansion packs and add a 1GB IBM Microdrive, no? Surely, that's pretty sweet. Especially if you use it with your digital camera...

  • I have the 3650... (Score:3)

    by stonewolf ( 234392 ) on Monday April 16, 2001 @01:31PM (#287828) Homepage
    with 32 megs and a Sierra wireless modem. 32 meg seems like a lot of memory until you load a video player and a few videos and DOOM and a couple of wads and then start looking to load Quake...

    The iPaq is simply amazing to a guy whose first personal computer had 16K (kilo not mega) bytes of RAM and a 2mhz z80 processor...

    Really, the wireless network is to slow for serious use, but works ok for email. And, 32 meg is not nearly enugh memory if you plan to use the machine for entertainment. And yeah, it runs DOOM pretty well.

    StoneWolf

  • Buy a Palm [palm.com] or Visor [handspring.com] for palm computing.

    Buy a Neo 25 [funmp3players.com] for portable mp3 listening.

    It's just that simple. I can't understand why anybody would even waste their time with a 64mb solid state player. I'll take a 20 gig player I can stick in my pocket any day.

  • lol...so true... I just had to put in a long and cruel laugh at someone else's expense ;)
  • No it's very definitely not worth calling it off. I've held the exact same grudge ever since they made their own SDRAM spec for some of their systems. I think they were trying to be Apple for a while cuz that's one of their old tricks. They took a standard SDRAM module and moved the notches over ONE PIN so that if you wanted to upgrade, you had to buy the ram from them at 2 or 3 times the cost :P What a bunch of wankers. I didn't like them before that but that was the final nail in the coffin. And then they bought DEC and all but buried the Alpha...they deserve to be beaten with a live electric eel and forced to answer their own help desk lines for a week straight or until they get it through their heads that THEIR PRODUCTS SUCK!! This rant has been brought to you by serious sleep deprivation and a lot of caffeine.
  • OK so my new Visor Edge only has 8 MB and this is offering 64MB. As they are using different OS and other software is this a direct comparison? Or do the different systems use different amounts of memory to do the same thing?
  • However, you are limited to 10 units...

    Please limit your purchase to 10 units.

    Oh no!!! I'll only make a few grand on ebay!!! :)


  • For some reason, I can't find the higher-end one on the site -- am I alone? With 64MB, this beats all but my most recent computer. Pop in my Merlin wireless card, and I can roam the city talking to myself all day? Excellent.

    The way this post sounded, one would think this dude is a basehead on a binge or something. 64mb on your PC? Well for the price of that little toy you could jack your pc's mem up easily.

    I never understood why one would rush out to buy the latest hardware or even software, especially when their brand spanking new, when as tech shows up, next month something more high powered is about to hit the big screen and so called "blow your mind." So why the big hooplah over this.

    As you were [antioffline.com]
  • I have had no problems with my iPAQ. There have of course been stories about dust under the screen, styluses getting stuck, etc. However, all seem to agree that Compaq has acted admirably in fixing these problems. For example, everyone who has had dust under the screen has simply been able to send the iPAQ in to Compaq and they repair it and send it right back.

    There is only one issue I have with my iPAQ: the fact that it can only detect one button press at a time. That is really the only complaint I have (it's making it harder for me to finally beat Super Mario Bros. 3 ;-) If it was really a problem, though, I'd just go get one of these [targus.com]. In fact, I may get one anyway, just because they're SO DARN COOL!

    I am very impressed with Compaq's willingness to help out with porting Linux to the iPAQ. The handhelds.org [handhelds.org] site is hosted by them and they provide technical specs for the iPAQ to porters.

    Overall, I'm extremely happy with my iPAQ. It's a great product, don't deprive yourself because of some silly vendetta.

    P.S. The best way to get an iPAQ is to simply go down to your local Best Buy (they probably already have a sample unit for you to play with) or other tech store and get on a waiting list. Compaq is doling out iPAQs in small increments to retail chains as they become available. Don't fiddle around with online retailers or whatever. I got my iPAQ in Febuary from my local Best Buy, after waiting a little more than a month.

  • Well, my iPAQ requires syncing because I like to have my e-mail and websites downloaded to it every morning but I don't have the PC card sleeve so I can't use the Internet directly. If I had some form of Internet access for it, I probably wouldn't sync it nearly as much. Of course, there are other benefits to syncing, such as having your data automatically backed up (you can never be too careful). I guess syncing isn't really "required," especially if you have a modem or ethernet card. If you really had something against syncing, though, you could just use the AC adapter to power up at any old outlet once a day or so.

    Also, I seriously doubt that the Newton's handwriting recognition is any better than Microsoft's Transcriber (an amazing piece of software). However, a keyboard is still faster than handwriting, even on actual paper, and especially for coding (writing characters like *, &, {, and } is not fun)

  • Re:What's the big deal... (Score:5)

    by Spy Hunter ( 317220 ) on Monday April 16, 2001 @01:31PM (#287846) Journal
    How often do you have to change the batteries in one of these iPaqs?

    Try "never." It has an internal Li-polymer (or some such) battery that is about 2mm thick (!). It recharges as long as its on the docking cradle. Its not really a problem, since for the iPAQ to be really useful, its best to sync it at least once a day, and the battery recharges pretty fast while you sync.

    what do you think they[PC cards]'re going to do to a handheld on AAAs?

    Who knows? Although you can never have too much battery power, I think they iPAQ's battery does pretty well even with PC cards. Of course it does depend on what card you're using as well. Also, there are battery extenders available that can simply plug in to the bottom of the iPAQ, doubling the battery life.

    But 64 is ridiculous.

    I don't think so. I'd love 64 MB. That way, my iPAQ could have a reasonable music collection on it and it could be my MP3 player as well as a PDA. Plus, when you start putting Linux on it, and get one of these [targus.com], the iPAQ becomes a serious competitor to a full-fledged laptop. Why lug around a 2 lb brick when you can carry around your iPAQ with wireless (or wired) Internet access, a full-sized keyboard, and the processor power and memory to make good use of both?

  • Will the same distribution of linux built for the lesser models also run on this one?? I suppose it might be too early to know for sure, but looking at the specifications, it should run just fine. Now if only they could put some more colors on that little screen......
  • A handheld doesn't NEED 64MB of RAM. That's just a coverup for poor programming!

  • link (Score:4)

    by loafy ( 442322 ) on Monday April 16, 2001 @12:58PM (#287857)
    Compaq ipaq 3670 206MHZ 64MB Pocket PC Color [warehouse.com]

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