No Man's Land
Written: Oct 04 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Flexible, inexpensive, best Windows CE clamshell
Cons: Tight viewable angles, doesn't excel at anything
|
|
|
| syc's Full Review: Vadem Clio C-1050 |
The Vadem Clio 1050 is a Windows CE-based clamshell device. It's not really palm-sized, but rather, mini-notebook sized. Before, I go into my review on the Clio, I should explain what I was hoping to accomplish. I am a very heavy technology user with my eyes glued to some sort of display for approximately 75% of my waking hours (yes, very sad). I am lucky enough however to have a desktop at work, a notebook for home and travel, and a Palm V. With this motley assortment of devices...what, you might ask, was I expecting of the Vadem? Well, I was hoping to ditch my Palm and notebook for light daily use and make the Vadem my primary device for reading documents (preventing me from buying a dedicated ebook reader), basic PIM-like activities, surfing the web, writing documents, spreadsheets, etc. What really sold me on the Clio was a dream-like vision of myself being able to walk around freely with a little tablet taking notes, looking things up on the web, checking my calendar, and so on.
My first impressions of the Clio was "this is one sweet looking device." The construction is solid, and it feels good in the hands. It's not light (much heavier than my Palm but nowhere near as heavy as a notebook), mind you, but it's balanced relatively well and feels like a book. Converting the Clio from notebook to tablet to presentation (does anyone really use that?) is simple although it did give me images of the screen shattering as it popped forcefully into configuration. My intent was to have it primarily in the tablet mode so I could read and write on it with the stylus ala a notepad. One very cool feature that Vadem built in the Clio, but for some odd reason kept hidden, is the ability to put the display into portrait mode. In portrait mode, you can hold and use the Clio as if it were a letter pad. I thought this mode would be particularly conducive to reading PDF files and other documents. The screen is passive matrix but bright and relatively easy to read.
After 2 weeks of use and the novelty factor fading, my overall opinion is: while it is neat, it's just not quite there yet. The Clio is in no-man's land stuck between just enough power and just portable enough without really hitting either. For example, I wasn't really able to use it to read PDF files because the data transfer is very slow, the PDF readers available on the Windows CE machine is pretty bare-bones, and the processing makes turning each page pretty painful. Also, the stripped down Office products really are stripped down and make it difficult to work with anything other than the most basic documents. I also realized that, although it does have instant-on, it really doesn't compete with the Palm or other handhelds for a practical, quick PIM. One last example...the display is bright but there is definitely an trick to getting it at the right angle. I noticed that the screen is difficult to use in portrait display mode since it's optimized for landscape display mode.
Like most compromises, it will probably work great for people who are looking for a low-power device that will touch on both power and portability without doing a great job of either. For me, and probably many power users, I'll stick with a Palm and notebook combo until the next class of tablet computers come out (maybe Transmeta-based computers will finally address this space).
To summarize and add some additional comments, I've put together a small list of the pros and cons.
Pros:
<ol>
<li>Solidly built, feels good in hands
<li>Inexpensive alternative to notebook for light office tasks (i.e. basic word processing, spreadsheets, light surfing on very basic sites, etc.)
<li>Very flexible (different usage modes, ability to use keyboard or stylus)
<li>Portrait display mode (only thing I know of that has this ability)
<li>Bright display for a passive matrix LCD
<li>Synchronizes perfectly with Outlook
<li>Almost everything you need is built in (i.e. Micro-Office apps, modem, handwriting software, etc.)
<li>Probably the best Windows CE clamshell out there (not a true pro, but one if you insist on a Windows CE clamshell)
</ol>
Cons:
<ol>
<li>Doesn't do anything extremely well
<li>Display is difficult to read at odd angles (not good for reading casually or in bed)
<li>Synchronization is slow, slow, slow
<li>Serious web surfing is pretty difficult due to slow modem and slow browser (although the color isn't bad)
<li>Unclear future with lack of direction from Microsoft regarding clamshell Windows CE, and recent buy-out of Vadem
<li>No headphone plugs (this would be very perfect for listening to MP3s stored on the new IBM 1GB micro-drive no?)
<li>Not really something you can pick up and go (like a true PDA)
</ol>
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 800.00
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
syc
|
|
Member: Sean Chou
Location: Chicago, IL
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Half-heartedly recovering gadget geek.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.