Thanks Luiz!

interesting list of devices.

my list

1994 – psion 3a, still have it, still works.
1996 – psion 3c, stolen after less than a month
1997 – psion 5, my only computer for 3 years. it did everything.
2000 – palm iiix, was broke and couldn’t afford a new psion but my company was willing to buy this for me as they were thinking of writing for the palm market.
2001 – palm iiic, hated the colour screen as it ate battery life so…
2001 – palm m125, touchscreen was crap and buggy. known bug even when palm emailed me saying there was no such problem a week before they released the patch.
2001 – visor neo, added a sd card reader into the expansion slot. beautiful hardware.
2001 – psion 5mx delivered the day they nnounced they were getting out of the market.
2003 – sharp zaurus 5500, great fun but battery life was unpredictable.
2004 – nokia 3650, with crappy circular keyboard
2006 – nokia n70, great device with good software and feature set.
2007 – nokia e61, i carried the n70 still when i got this as i needed the camera at work. loved the wifi and qwerty keyboard.
2007 – nokia 770, really nice but the e61 did everything better and smaller.
2007 – ipod nano, the limit of 2gb for mp3s on the nokias was the reason for getting this.
2007 – nokia e61i, i could finally get to carry just one phone as it has a camera. still miss the fm radio of the n70.
2008 – ipod classic, so i could carry a couple of dozen movies when i’m travelling to work.
2008 – asus eee pc, mainly for handling the gazillion pdfs i have to deal with. they can be viewed on the nokias but you have to scroll left and right to read a single line.

i think the hardest part was finding a good home for the hardware when i was finished with it. these days when i leave for work or gaming i have my e61i, ipod and eee pc. small light hardware with a total value of less than €1000 that gets dragged around public transport for 4 hours a day as well as customers offices. better than a big expensive laptop.

in 2001 i was trying to find a good palm device. the visor neo was the best of them all. however the palm platform has limitations. the biggest is that it has no file system. ok the memory cards do but it is a kludge at best. this meant that were i was saving of html and txt documeents for reference i had trouble handling them so i moved back to psion as it handled them perfectly.

the recent splurge on hardware was trying to solve my recent problem of pdf files on the move. at work and rpg gaming i have 100s of pdfs. finding a device that could read them comfortably was surprisingly difficult. the n70 was a logical upgrade when the 3650 was showing its age. however i hoped that with a wider screen the 770 would be able to show a page width of text in a pdf to prevent having to scroll from side to side to read a single line of text. many of the gaming pdfs are jpgs in a pdf format so they can have horrible fonts. it was so close. but many of the pdfs are 50mb+ in size and couldn’t be displayed. those that did were ok. however the pdf viewer on the nokia 770 and 810 that i have on loan at the moment can’t search for text within the pdf. wtf! so i went with the nokia e61 for the big keyboard as i do a lot of letter writing to email penpals while on the bus. when they released the e61i a few months later i bought it as i had been carrying 2 phones. the e61 for phone/ sms/ email/ ebooks/ wifi/ notes/ contacts and the n70 for mp3/radio/camera.

the e61i gives me phone/ sms/ email/ ebooks/ wifi/ notes/ contacts/ mp3/ camera

however the e61i as good as it is is limited to a 2gb memory card. for mp3s these days that’s not a lot considering i was using 500mb for other tasks. that was when i picked up an ipod nano so as to have 8gb for mp3s and a movie or two. liking the nano i then picked up the ipod classic. tons of room and now that i have an asus eee pc i can plug it in as a external hd.

the asus was really purchased as a cheap pdf viewer. i’ve used it on the bus and for viewing pdfs it is perfect. full width of the page and i can plow through tons of documentation on the fly without having to print off and then dump the print out. i also use open office/ firefox and am trying to learn python when i get a spare moment. it’s also very handy at work to plonk it down beside your main machine and use the second screen for notes or reference material. saves flipping through screens of info to get what you want.

oh and i forgot one device. when i got the nokia 3650 it was missing one feature a global search. i used the palm memopad a lot for personal notes and documentation at work. about 800 memos were on my palm and the nokia equivalent sorted them by date modified which is useless. with no global search i wouldn’t transfer these on(since fixed with global search on e61 and e61i). so i got a palm e. had to send it back as it was faulty. sound was glitchy. todo button was broken and 1-2 other problems. they sent it back with working sound. the rest of the problems remained. will never buy palm again after that. also grafitti 2 was a shambles. when i could write with 99.9% accuracy with grafitti 1 grafitti 2 i was about 90% accurate. ewww!

i think i have hit the sweet spot with 3 devices. small ultra portable phone can be used anywhere and does 99% of everything. when i was in hospital recently i used opera mini on it to stave off boredom and keep up with the news. google mobile reader handled the brunt of this and limited the data i had to download. the ebook collection of about 200 books or so was handy but you eventually get tired of reading. so i had 1.5gb of music to keep me going. plus 1-2 games.

in normal situations the ipod carries tons of entertainment or data for when i’m on the move or plugged into the eee. and the eee for when i’m in a static location or plowing through pdf documentation while commuting. i can see myself replacing each of the 3 with better devices but the 3 of them as they work well together provides a nice degree of overlap and backup. 2 mp3 players. 2 devices that handle wifi and internet. 2 devices that can play movies.

everyday i walk through dublin city centre and i see all the business men with their laptop cases. now even wheeled laptop cases. they’re huge. my bag is tiny and contains chargers for phone/ipod/eee cd case for work related issues. note book pens and pencils for when you want handwritten notes or recipts. spare glasses. medical kit for cuts and grazes that you pick up when repairing computers. all the network/usb cables to connect the devices to the asus to do transfers.

so far 2 people have bought eee pc because of my recommendation. very happy customers. i reckon another 10 said they were going to buy them but i haven’t heard if they have yet or not. it is a very nice little device. not sure i like were the 900 is going. even the size of the power supply would be enough to put me off. one of the people who was very keen to buy one uses a big 15″ laptop to do power point presentations. i got him to but his laptop bag on one side of the desk and mine of the other and compare sizes and weights. he flies a lot so weight which he has to carry is a big issue. the size of the eee pc power supply was a shock as he’s carried power bricks with laptops for the past 10+ years. the plug that comes with eee is tiny and very light. the 900 looks like it will have a power brick.