tinyjo: (webdesigner - chez geek)
Emptied of expectation. Relax. ([personal profile] tinyjo) wrote2006-08-02 02:51 pm
Entry tags:

Convergence

So, with my iRiver missing in action I've been thinking about my devices again. I like my treo a lot but the battery life is starting to go and I find that I almost never take photos on it because of the poor quality so I have been thinking about replacing that, possibly with the Treo 700p when it finally comes out.

I started off thinking about not replacing the iRiver and just getting some SD cards for the Treo but it looks like the 4GB ones don't work with Treo, which would leave me buying a lot of 2GB ones to fit all my music and not getting that whole random across everything feel which can be so much fun. So then I thought why not trade my current treo for a PDA with a big hard drive and then I could get a little phone with a really good camera on it - Vodafone owe me an upgrade anyway.

Well, I looked and looked but to no avail. You would think that given you can get 60GB into an iPod these days you would be able to buy PDAs with a similar capacity but it seems not. The only one even remotely close was the Palm LifeDrive, which is 4gb and takes 4gb SD cards. Better, but still not great. I think some mp3 players do have organiser functions on but I get the impression that they're generally not very full featured (and I've no idea how you would enter text on them) so I more or less discounted them as an option but if you know of any which are good, do tell!

So the LifeDrive was looking like the best option and I decided to start looking at prices for it and a bunch of SD cards when I found the Samsung Q1. Yes, it's a tablet PC about the size of a paperback book. Another technology purchase I've been thinking about for a while was an ultraportable laptop (mine's very bulky plus old and a bit rubbish these days). 40GB would fit all my music on with no problems (the old iRiver was 20gb) and it has a multimedia mode you can run without booting into Windows all the time. The major downside is the battery life - not bad for a laptop but not great for a portable music player/organiser. On the other hand, it might fit quite nicely with my usage patterns - I can't think of many times when I would want longer continuous use out and about. Plus, you know, tiny! We like tiny. So now I've been spending the afternoon doing sums to figure out if I can afford it because it's making me drool! My technology lust is startling sometimes.

[identity profile] shepline.livejournal.com 2006-08-02 04:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Not that I know much about these things, but it seems to me that if you can you should hold off on the new laptop (or at least not one that is supposed to be ultra-portable) until they've brought out these new one's with the flash memory drives rather than hard drives, as I believe you get better performance, longer battery life, and lighter weight for your money.

How about a new phone, a PDA and an iRiver (or alternative) and have three times the technology lust and geekiness?!!

[identity profile] tinyjo.livejournal.com 2006-08-03 08:39 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, but that could be months and the weight different will be pretty negligable. I haven't seen anything that suggests they will have better battery life or that might have been a temptation but for now I'm happy with what I'm getting :)

And the whole point is to have fewer overall devices but shinier! Everyone likes fewer devices :)

[identity profile] shepline.livejournal.com 2006-08-03 05:08 pm (UTC)(link)
So what kind of shiny have you actually gone for (apologies if I've missed the link)?

[identity profile] tinyjo.livejournal.com 2006-08-04 09:15 am (UTC)(link)
The Q1 that I linked in this post - Alex encouraged me to treat myself out of my bonus :) It arrived this morning and I'm in love!

don't give up on your Treo!

[identity profile] e-pepys.livejournal.com 2006-08-02 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
The Treo 650 can use a 4GB SD card. I am using it now and it works fine. You have to flash the ROM, but it's not difficult. I can point you at instructions if you like, but basically you replace the FAT16 driver with a FAT32 one someone got from a LifeDrive (I checked using a friend's LifeDrive). The new driver is faster too!

Another nice thing about the 650 is that the battery is replaceable. You could get a new one if your present one has lost its oomph.

Re: don't give up on your Treo!

[identity profile] tinyjo.livejournal.com 2006-08-03 08:23 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, I hadn't realised you could make the 4gb ones work in Treos. If you could also flash it to include a better camera I would stick with it but I've stopped taking photos with mine pretty much because the quality just isn't good enough most of the time and it gets frustrating so I'd still be looking to exchange the 650, albeit possibly for the 700p if I hadn't seen this!

Re: don't give up on your Treo!

[identity profile] e-pepys.livejournal.com 2006-08-03 01:31 pm (UTC)(link)
The 700p does look sweet. Sadly I don't think that a better camera and more memory can justify me to replace my 650. Unless the UK model (if it eventually appears) includes 3G (or something else faster than GPRS that works here).

The only other improvement (as far as I can see) is that the 700p includes Bluetooth 1.2, which should allow for stereo wireless headphones. But you can buy 3rd party software to do that on the 650.

I do really like the fact that I can have everything in my pocket (even a vibrator, snarf snarf!). Some features are not ideal (eg. I'd like better button control on the MP3 players, and might even try to work on that myself), but it is good enough that I don't usually have to carry around any other tech.

Of course as soon as I see your new paperback-sized PC, I might fall in love - just as I did with your Treo when you showed it me last Caption!

[identity profile] truecatachresis.livejournal.com 2006-08-04 12:14 pm (UTC)(link)
If your iRiver doesn't turn up, could I steal your power supply for it? I could do with a spare charger to leave in the office, as the battery life is so good that I don't tend to bother charging it during the week. This has meant that it has sometimes died.

[identity profile] tinyjo.livejournal.com 2006-08-04 05:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Sure, why not. I'll bring it along this evening and then if they iRiver turns up you can pass it back.

[identity profile] knirirr.livejournal.com 2006-08-07 10:19 am (UTC)(link)
What model is your old laptop?

[identity profile] tinyjo.livejournal.com 2006-08-07 02:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Toshiba Satellite 1400 - the main difference is more RAM as I've only got 256 meg on that.