Pocket gadget thread

So... How well does that thing play video? Can I watch Top Gear on it?

Mine was older than that - I have a little sled for it that lets you plug in a PCMCIA card, and that's how it gets wireless. It was pretty cool stuff at the time. And the current form of Top Gear was still two years away - but I do recall using it for video playback as part of a demo.

I should dig that thing out, I wonder where it is? I always preferred my Palm V.

Vroom says the pilot!

It actually does video pretty well. You use the Windows Media Player application that is on it and the video quality is pretty good. I played literally thousands of games of Solitaire on it too. I could beat it in as little as 111 seconds. And the cheat-code worked on it too (so that it would deal the cards as AAAA, 2222, 3333, 4444, 5555, 6666, etc.). I actually recorded every single time I ever scored on it, but a dead battery yielded erased memory (watch out for that!!!).

Also, Windows Media Player did music play lists pretty well. I had a few songs on there, but I had an iPod too, so I didn't need it.

Actually, it did a LOT of cool things. The transcriber was better than anything Palm put out for years. It's still a really cool feature that nobody seemed to bother with afterward. It also had a built-in recorder application, a great calendar, and some other goodies. The lack of built-in Wi-Fi hurt my model and I never did get the card for it. There was also a GPS chipset that you could buy (and I intended on doing it for aviation purposes).

Honestly, the best gadgets are going to be phones.

I have a Samsung Omnia, and though it's not the most trendy and flashy gadget out there, it does have the ability to be pretty sweet.

1: It runs on Windows Mobile, so just put your windows DVD in the computer and add the Active Sync (it's included with Windows and honestly, it's faster and easier to just download it from MS's website). This enables you to connect your phone, explore the entire directory, copy files and programs without any 3rd party applications.

2: It's Windows Mobile, so most of the PDA programs will install and run on it just fine.

3: 8gb or 16gb internal memory, plus up to 8gb Micro SDHC expansion slot.

4: Windows media player, so you can watch movies, and listed to music.

5: Internet is obviously available depending on if you pay for internet service.

The latest "cool" thing I've found it can do, is that with Winamp Mobil setup on my desktop, I can now explore and play any of my 25,000+ songs from anywhere through my phone. So now it makes all that internal memory moot anyways.

I think Keith et al. are on the right track for you - the product you describe has either not been out for years (iPaq, etc.), or isn't out yet (the sweet new Asus iPad killer that runs Android).

Here's the newest Pocket PC I'm aware of - I remember selling ones like this in a computer store back in 04. http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=dell+axim&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=1849225823550313070&ei=Y8GDS-T9C5Ge8AaP-MTCAg&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CB4Q8wIwBA#ps-sellers

szeis4cookie wrote: Here's the newest Pocket PC I'm aware of - I remember selling ones like this in a computer store back in 04. http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=dell+axim&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=1849225823550313070&ei=Y8GDS-T9C5Ge8AaP-MTCAg&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CB4Q8wIwBA#ps-sellers

I actually have the newer version of that, the X51V- good sized VGA screen- pretty powerful. I can rip my movies to play on it when travelling- which adds some entertainment to the mix on the plane. Pretty cool.

And there are some applications that do run in windows mobile- like MaxQ will.

I'm not 100% sold on the pda as the coolest thing ever, even though I've had one for a long time now. I bought it to become more diciplined in keeping track of what I do- but that's been a FAIL situation.

Eric

I posted a link to the current iPaq lineup earlier. They're still available apparently. And if there's anywhere in the world you'll find one, it'll be Singapore :)

It seems that the Pocket PCs really focused on being incredibly powerful computers in a very small package. My iPaq is more powerful than the PC that I had when I got it. I don't think the smartphone guys are focused on that anymore and instead focus on keyboards, features, and cool shells.