Handhelds and Flight Sims (but not together..)

[Malteser]

Two questions:

Handhelds - I want to get something like a palmtop so that I can do all the email jazz from a mobile/landline, sync up to PC for diary and email, all the other PDA mojo, but also a bit of simple web browsing and occasional spreadsheet looking-at etc. I thought a Windows CE thang would do the trick. Anyone know whether something like the HP Jornarda 420 would do all of this? I know the 3coms don't do web, and I was looking for something simpler than the keyboard stuff (psions etc.)

Flight sims: If one were to get MS FS98, which ones of the hundreds of add-on sw packages would you need to make it worthwhile and good. What do they all do? If, for example, one were just about to start type conversion on A320, would that EFIS package be any good as a toy?
Any other decent flight sim PC things around?

Appreciate any help.....

[Feline]

Hi Malteser,

Handhelds:

The fact that no other PPruNer's have seen fit to reply to your post could well indicate that this is an area where angels fear to tread ...

Be that as it may, welcome to the pursuit of the Holy Grail for the optimal handheld computing device. Be warned that it can lead to obsessive behaviour and can become a VERY expensive habit.

The problem with extremely portable computing devices is that they really focus a whole heap of contradictory requirements into one place. Need a device that gives you a colour screen, oodles of compute power and memory all into a package that fits into your pocket? No problem, we have this model where the battery is built in and lasts for five minutes! Or we do have this model with the external battery, it still fits in your pocket, but the external battery is the same size as your car battery - but it does last three weeks between charges! Get the picture?

Here are a few pros and cons and comments:

Windows CE:
Pro - instant on, Fairly crash proof
Con - Only way to update is to replace ROM or re-flash memory; Available applications limited (both in versions published and the "depth" of the facilities available in those that have been published); But "standard" applications (eg. stripped down versions of Word or Excel) are fine if you're only tinkering while on the run and don't want to design web sites with multi column frame layouts.

Screens:
Colour screens are very sexy, but they take a lot of juice (see too batteries); B & W screens not so energy hungry; Some screens very difficult to read in bright light; Small format screens (Jornada 420, Palm) not suitable for web browsing (but some sites will probably offer an alternative screen view for small screens - sameway that some sites (still) offer a plain text flavour as well as a graphics intensive flavour)

Batteries:
Battery technology is still the achilles heel of portable devices; The faster the processor, the more the memory, the sexier the screen, the heavier the drain on the battery; This means that most of the newer PDA's are using rechargeable technology. That means you've got to tie yourself down to an AC outlet, and the battery life on some of them is dismal (six hours isn't even a working day);

Input: Stylus based inputs for most anything that is intellectually-intensive sucks! Some of the PDA's offer an optional keyboard (there's one for the HP Jornada 420, and also one for the Palm - haven't actually seen 'em but I've read about them)

Synchronising Software: Be prepared to spend many not-so happy hours getting it to work (mapping fields on the PDA to your PC); Some of it's good, (particularly *after* you've managed to set it up), but some of it plain sucks (for example, when it decides that there is no device on the other end of the cable connecting the PC to the PDA)

Christmas Tree Effect: The ads and the slick salesmen are very good at telling you that it only weighs 500 grams and will fit in a jacket pocket. What they never bother to tell you is that by the time you've also taken into account the AC adapter (which invariably needs a bulky wall socket adapter for every countru you visit), the optional CD-ROM drive, the enhanced capacity battery pack, the optional keyboard, the various cables (serial, Parallel, mains, modem), the various PC Cards (memory, solid-state disk, modem, not to mention any manuals you might feel you need to take along, then you're using up a whole lot of space in your smart leather flight case ...

Anything you buy will be obsolete 3 nanoseconds after you've payed for it! Watch this space for all sorts of fascinating devices that will hit the stores Real Soon Now! How about the Ericsson R380 cell phone (the keyboard flips up to reveal a screen)? Or the Nokia 9000 PDA? Oh, and by the way, the HP Jornada 420 is now obsolete - it's now the Jornada 430 ... Get my drift? Read a fascinating article about a gadget about the size of a small clip board, 1 cm thick which is a web browser ...

My personal travelling stable (circus?):
(1) Palm III (runs off two AAA batteries - obtainable anywhere, does all my appointments and phone numbers, instant on, fits in my pocket, and can even, at a pinch, do e-mails which are uploaded and sent from my laptop as soon as I dock it; also, more or less forces you to actually backup your data to another machine, be it laptop or desk top)
(2) Toshiba Libretto 50CT sub-notebook (now obsolete) running Win95 (takes for ever to boot but runs all my favourite applications and is small enough to fit on the smallest table in cattle class - and believe me, some of them are truly tiny!)

Wish list (Santa, are you listening?): HP Jornada 680 (twice the price of the Jornada 420/430), Sony Vaio C1, IBM ThinkPad 240 (dream on ...)

Go forth, shove shekels on the shysters or dollop dollars on the dealers - and enjoy!

Flight Sims:

No Comment - I refuse to play games with a stupid piece of sand that invariably beats me ;) Ooops, of course, Flight Sims - not a game - serious stuff. My only observation is that one of the earlier version of MS FS actually made me feel quite sick ...


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Feline
(I Sit, I Watch, I Smile)

[Malteser]

Hello Moggy,

Wow! So much information. And so far away. Isn't technology smashing? Thanks for all that.

So which one would you recommend? All I really want on top of what they can all offer is the ability to very occasionally access the web for text (i.e. the news, or even our very own pprune..), for email download, and for very occasional excel reading/entering. But only now and again, when I'm stuck in some god-foresaken downtown hotel bar in Milan for an evening. Or even Edinburgh.

Sounds like Psion 5mx, or even a communicator type gizmo, but I was hoping for something *like* the 420. Cos it's more of a gadget.

(I like gadgets.)

Re. flight sims - I can't fit a 320 sim in my house, so the PC will have to do. I'm still at the eager stage of my career......

[Jetset Willy]

Hey Malteser

I think the EFIS add-on for FS98 is brilliant. It certainly adds a whole new dimension to the program, and it has lots of features too - cat1 autolands, APWS, and many different CRT displays. It also has extensive flight planning software and a well written and informative manual comes with it.

I cannot compare it to the real thing (as I have never used real EFIS!) but it certainly seems very in-depth, and I have learnt an awful lot about VORs, DMEs, fixes and other nav aids from it.

Airport 2000 is also another good add-on with lots of new aircraft types and detailed airfields, but as the saying goes, nothing compares to the real thing!

[Feline]

Malteser,

If I was going out looking for a device to go everywhere with me, I'd stick with the Palm IIIx (that's the one with 4Mb memory); That looks after my diary, my phone nos, expenses and the occasional off-line e-mail; Also runs off two AAA batteries that last several weeks (and light enough to carry a spare set with me); Also, ultra-reliable synchronisation, dock and you synchronise, first time, every time.

HP Jornada 420/430 has a sexier (colour) display and somewhat more function, but it uses a rechargeable battery so I would have to lug the AC adapter around all the time.

If I was looking for occasional web browsing, online e-mail, and a bit of word processing and spreadsheeting,then I would look very hard at the HP Jornada 680: Does MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access and Outlook; Useable (if small) keyboard; Screen is the right format for browsing standard web pages (if only VGA); Built in 56Kbs modem (so you don't need to buy that separately and it doesn't take up a PC Card slot), and comes complete with docking station. But like I say - not cheap - about $800 (and then you can spend another few hundred dollars on other nice-to-have's: extended life battery, additional memory cards, external keyboard etc etc. Certainly rates five stars on my gadget desirability scale!

Don't know about Psions - had one once - loved the keyboard but found the software sufficiently different to be irritating - so dumped it and went back to DOS based handhelds ...

Like I said before - handhelds can be very hazardous indeed to your back pocket ;)

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Feline
(I Sit, I Watch, I Smile)