I have a new toy

My Precious!!!

Published on January 8, 2005 By IanTyger In Gadgets & Electronics

Monday I ordered it, wednesday I received it. It is a Audiovox PPC601, the latest in sonverged phone/pocket pc devices. It replaces an elderly iPAQ and a separate phone. It is (to me anyway) unutterably cool to be able to surf the net at fast dialup speeds on a device that fits in my shirt pocket, pretty much wherever I am, as long as I can get a data signal (which is just about everywhere except my apartment, dammit).

Tradeoffs include: relatively low battery live - a CDMA cellphone whacks the battery harder than wifi; my estimated barrety life under relatively heavy data usage is running at around 3 hrs, no VGA - the screen is still the standard QVGA, but more richer and crisper than that of the elderly iPAQ), no Compact Flash (but SD cards aren't that expensive), kinda bare-bones phone (no speed-dial, voice dial requares additional software, and of course, the Pocket PC OS is necessarily less stable than a phone OS).

Advantages: I've reduced the number of belt gadgets to 1 from 2, and lowered the need to carry a laptop around. Having a data connection on my PDA wheever I want it is way cool (crackberry users know all about this)

I can live with most of the tradeoffs for a converged device (though I am keeping a sharp eye out for the rumored extended battery, the factory one is 1600 mAh, a 2000 mAh battery has been announced, and there's rumor of a 3000 mAh battery (!). In the meantime, I just have to carry a power adapter, or keep my data use light when I'm not going to be near power.

There was an article in the New York Times this week about power users Link (requires free registration or a visit to Link) that relates to the needs of gadget lovers.

Long term, I still gotta see, but first impressions are that I'm happy with it

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