Electronic book questions

[KingPhoenix]

A pocket PC isnt gonna be that easy to use, unless you get a blue tooth wireless laser keyboard to go with it ... as you will have a keyboard the size of the screen to use your stylus on...... so quick notes wouldnt be possible in all fairness..... Id recommend an iPaq... i have a 5550 and a 6550... both extremely good... both have wi-fi and the 5550 has a biometric scanner instead of pin for activating it

[Ramrod]

Do those have touchscreen/handwriting recognition and a USB port?

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Does anyone have any comments about the offerings from Palm?

[Gareth]

Have a look at some of the stuff here... http://www.paperbackpc.com/

---------- Post added at 21:59 ---------- Previous post was at 21:00 ----------

If the ones above are funky but not functional, how about this...

http://gp2x.co.uk/aboutgp2x.html

OK. We will try to keep it simple.

To sum up the GP2X:

It can play games. It can play your Movies. It can play your music. It can view photos. It can read Ebooks. It runs on just 2 AA batteries - And it can do all this in the palm of your hand or on your TV screen.

Yes that's right, this handheld can connect to the TV, console style. Watch your DivX movies on the TV. Play emulated classics on the TV. Try big screen Quake. Or just play them all on the GP2X's large 320*240 backlit screen. You get the best of both worlds.

It runs the free Linux operating system. This means a whole world of Games, Utilities and Emulators are at your disposal. Quake, Doom, SNES, Megadrive, MAME, Media players and Applications to name just a few.

It's powerful - Two 200mhz CPU's with 64meg of RAM, custom graphics hardware and decoding chips. Takes SD cards and has 64M of NAND memory. Plenty to play with. One of the most powerful and advanced handhelds today.

That means it can play movies without any re-encoding. Just put them onto an SD card. Any size. Any resolution. No messing about. The GP2X scaling chip will resize to fit the screen. No other handheld can do that.

It's cheap. Just £124.99 .

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Gareth

Have a look at some of the stuff here... http://www.paperbackpc.com/

---------- Post added at 21:59 ---------- Previous post was at 21:00 ----------

If the ones above are funky but not functional, how about this...

http://gp2x.co.uk/aboutgp2x.html

Interesting, but the first has terrible reviews and the second, while very nice, doesn't have wi-fi but seems fine otherwise....I like the 2.0 usb.....but it doesn't appear to have any input method like keyboard or stylus....but otherwise it's great! I love it.....shame it's missing some stuff....

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Does anyone have any comments on the Palm Lifedrive?

[Ramrod]

Well I got a palm life drive yesterday. Lovely piece of kit! 4gig of memory, built in wifi and bluetooth......connected to my wireless router effortlessly..........easy to use........and it wouldn't bluddy well install on my XP64 PC
So back it went to John Lewis.....
lifedrive=early adopter/gadget freak
64bit os=early adopter/gadget freak
........so why don't palm have 64bit drivers....or a workaround ffs?

Next?!

[Shaun]

I love my X30 from Dell. Not their newest Pocket PC (so their newer ones may have a better spec) but does everything you want except it doesn't have a USB port for your pen drive but it does take an SD card for storing your research on.

I have the fold-able keyboard with it that plus into the bottom for when I need to sit and do some serious typing but I find the stylus o.k. for short notes or emails.

It has Wifi and Bluetooth, runs Adobe Acrobat very well and handles even large PDF files (600+ pages) with relative ease.

My only gripe is that Windows Mobile 2003 sometimes crashes it but that's a software issue rather than one with the hardware.

I really like the landscape mode too which allows you to read files and web pages easier.

It comes with pocket Word, Excel, and Outlook so you can use it to update your appointments and emails while out of the office.

Seems to tick most of the boxes that you have - my only reservations on recommending it is Dells ****ty customer service.

[Ramrod]

Tnx for the input m8. I have been looking at the DELLs and I wonder if they are 64bit compatable? My only gripe with all the handhelds is the lack of memory......the lifedrive has 4gig! It makes the rest of them look lame by comparison!
The Fujitsu Siemens POCKET LOOX 520 MN5UK 256MB looks nice and has has 802.11g wifi but not 4gig of memory........

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Tnx for the input m8. I have been looking at the DELLs and I wonder if they are 64bit compatable? My only gripe with all the handhelds is the lack of memory......the lifedrive has 4gig! It makes the rest of them look lame by comparison!
The Fujitsu Siemens POCKET LOOX 520 MN5UK 256MB looks nice and has has 802.11g wifi but not 4gig of memory........

Let me just look at Dells support site for a 64bit driver.....as for the storage, just pick up a couple of 1GB SD cards, that's what I have.

Edit - cant actually see any info on them having a 64bit driver but this site may be your best bet for info:

http://www.aximsite.com/x30review/

There's a good review in the link too.

[Ramrod]

OK.......I've found exactly what I need.....the slimbook a120
........just one slight snag

[Druchii]

1.7k ? Ouch...

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Druchii

1.7k ? Ouch...

Yep.....that'll never get past my financial controller
..........nice bit of kit though.....

[Druchii]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Yep.....that'll never get past my financial controller ..........nice bit of kit though.....

Correct, absolutely lovely... When i win the lottery... haha...

Interesting that the Apple Newton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton

which would seem similar to what Ramrod wants, never took off.

Mrs Gaz tried one out, once, it was pretty neat, but a while ago, so a bit heavy

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by homealone

Interesting that the Apple Newton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton

which would seem similar to what Ramrod wants, never took off.

Mrs Gaz tried one out, once, it was pretty neat, but a while ago, so a bit heavy

I remember that! Especially the logo!
btw......If anyone here is in the market for a PDA I urge you to get the lifedrive from palm....the only downside is that it uses 802.11b rather than g wifi........otherwise it's brilliant!
........and it isn't very 64bit compatable

[handyman]

What about one of these .

Simply use 2 gig sd cards with it. It has wireless and probably better chance of xp64bit drivers.

Or you could ditch xp 64bit then most things will work.