As I've mentioned before I love my handheld! I actually went so far as to name it, he's called Ed. When he broke the other day and I had to take him back to get him fixed (I felt like I was missing a limb until he was fixed), I consciously had to stop myself calling my handheld 'him' and 'Ed' - they guy in the shop would have thought I was crazy!
Anyway, Melisma you wanted to know what everyone else had. Well, Ed is a Toshiba e330 pocket PC. I wasn't too sure about going for a pocket pc, as opposed to a palm, as Bill Gates is not my most favourite person. Windows/Microsoft/Excel and I haven't been getting on too well recently. However, getting a pocket pc meant it was easier to sychronise with my PC than a palm would have been. At least, that's what I was told. Plus, I know my way around Windows.
It came with the Pocket PC versions of Word and Excel. Its also got Internet Explorer (which you can surf the web on when the PPC is in its cradle connected to your PC), Mircosoft reader for e-books, solitare, adress book, task list etc.
There are 4 different ways of inputting text -
- Block Recognizer - lets you write on the screen an drecognises characters that the Grafitti hand writing recognition programme uses
- Keyboard - a keyboard appears on the bottom of the screen and you tap the letter you want with the stylus
- Letter recognizer - you write regular letters, individually, on the bottom of the screen
- and my new favourite, Transcriber - it lets you write anywhere on the screen in normal handwriting (as opposed to the individual characters for the Letter Rocognizer)
Ed has a screen light, which really has to be on for you to read anything, whic means the battery doesn't last just as long. It has 4 settings (low, medium, high and super
) and I find that for reading it has to be on high, tho medium does ok. Ed is also in colour, rather than B&W, it doesn't make much/any difference to the power consumption but I think it does bump up the price a little (Ed was quite expensive). It has 64MB of memory which you can divide between storage and programs (the guy told me I'd never use it all, and I thought to myself 'uh-huh, you have *no* idea'
), it has a slot for an expansion card, it will act as a dictaphone, has a headphone socket and proably one or two other things I'm fogetting
Oh, and Ed lasts 5 or so hrs before he need recharging, and that with the background light on high.
It took a little getting used to, reading fic that was only abouyt 3 or 4 word across, but now I don't even notice it! It really is great for reading fic on. I also found it really simple to get used to writting on, my note book has been consigned to the bottom of my drawer!
Hope this helps a little, tho probably way more than you ever needed!
Loriel
