Truly Vade Mecum
Written: Sep 16 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Instant On, TouchScreen, Handwriting Recognition, 12 hour battery
Cons: none
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| noahm7's Full Review: Vadem Clio C-1050 |
The manufacturer's name comes from the Latin term Vade Mecum which means "go with me" and is defined as "something regularly carried around by a person." Clio certainly fits the bill. I needed something to take notes on at college. I looked at laptops, pdas, and at the digital paper notepads.
The Clio ended up as my choice and I am extremely pleased with it. It looks cool (major points here) and it works (ok this counts for something too). I'm really glad I got the Clio versus either a laptop or a smaller pda. Instant On, the touchscreen, handwriting recognition, and the 12 hour battery make it much better then a laptop especially for my use. The bigger screen and expanded functionality make it much better then a pda for maybe twice the cost (some guy had a pda next to me and he was taking notes one letter at a time). Vadem offers a slip on protective case for it. Don't get it. I got mine for free because I registered. But the case does not fit on easily. My Dad got me a nice High Sierra case from Campmor.
Next is a paragraph devoted to each of the following topics: Screen, Handwriting Recognition, Keyboard, Operating System, Applications, Casing, Battery, Communications, Memory, and Buttons/Lights/Etc.
Screen: The Clio features a touch screen and boy is it cool. Excellent response times and the ability to use either the stylus (conveniently located right below the screen) or your finger makes this a wonderful feature. I end up trying to touch my main monitor and nothing happens. The screen is only visible indoors. Using it in the car or outside is next to impossible. The display is CCFT Backlit, 256 Color DSTN, 640x480, .30 dot pitch. I've ended up scratching the screen (while playing Solitaire) but it does not affect the view at all. The scratches are only visible when you look at it in sunlight.
Handwriting Recognition: You can write on the screen in either cursive or block and the Clio will translate it to text in the currently selected window. You can use it while writing in Pocket Word or while maintaining tasks and addresses or anything else that accepts keyboard input. The documentation was a little sparse on special keystrokes for deleting a character (a quick backwards stroke) and new paragraphs (down and left - similar to the image on the enter key). Recognition is instant out of the box. You can customize it for certain styles of writing however. You can also customize the time spent recognizing the text and the time between writing and translating. Out of the box it will recognize a sentence in about a second.
Keyboard: The keyboard was the best one I tried even compared to laptops. Its 63-key QWERTY with 16.5mm centers however it is curved to fit the angle of your hands more naturally. All the laptops were straight across. I was able to type "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog and escaped with its life" with no mistakes (something I was unable to do on anything else). I've found it to be faster to type then to write on the screen.
Operating System: The Clio runs on Microsoft (R) Windows (R) CE, Handheld PC 3.0. The system is loaded into Read Only Memory so you cannot mess it up. I have only crashed it twice and I'm not sure what was at fault. Both times it happened while the machine was on powersaver mode (backlight off) and I tapped it to wake it at the same time it went to shutdown and the whole thing locked up. Simply pressing the reset button on the back brought it back. Everything that is not saved is lost but nothing else was damaged.
Applications: The Clio comes with the default CE programs (Pocket Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Internet Explorer). It only includes one game, Solitaire, which gets a little boring. It also has Fax capabilities (via built in modem), task manager, contact manager, calendar, and inbox. All are separate programs but Vadem has a program that displays all their data on one screen. It makes everything a one stop shop and is really easy to use. It also supports a dual clock if you travel a lot. The whole machine can be backed up and restored from your main computer. All the files are transferrable to your main machine. However not all elements of a word document are available in Pocket Word, the same goes for the other pocket versions. The pocket versions are about 10% of the full ones.
Casing: The case is extremely durable. The whole thing weighs 3.2 pounds with the battery. However it feels solid. It doesn't feel like a toy and yet it is still really light. The screen can rotate a full 180 degrees. It can be positioned as a laptop, as a tablet, and as an a-frame presentation monitor. The pc card slot it easily accessible on the side. However the flash card slot is beneath the battery on the bottom. I have yet to get the battery compartment open.
Battery: The battery goes for 12 hours (plus or minus 1-3 hours) depending on screen brightness and modem/pc card usage. The battery does recharge (albeit more slowly) while in use. Never let it run out of power though. You will lose everything. The system shuts down automatically when your really low on power. Find a wall socket soon.
Communications: It has a builtin faxmodem and runs at 33.6 kbps. Its is a software based modem (never heard of it before) and supposedly makes the machine run a little slower when using it. I've never tried it so I don't know how much slower. It also has a IrDa (level 1) Infrared Interface for printing to a PCL compatible printer and talking to synchronization devices. It has a serial port that also connects it to your computer for syncing. And it has a Type II PC Card and a Type II Compact Flash Slot.
Memory: It comes with 16 megs EDO RAM (upgradable to 32 via Vadem - its not a standard SIMM) and 24 megs ROM.
Buttons/Lights/Etc: The power button is right next to the screen. You can set it up to power on when you open the screen and suspend when you close it. The speaker is on the bottom and the mic is next to the power button. You have to talk directly into the mic and even then its faint. There is a light on the front that indicates two things. One side is the charging state (green full power, orange charging). The other is blinking red when you have a reminder notification. The system will power up and flash the lights and play a sound for a reminder notification if the screen is open. Don't worry about the reminder light draining the battery...the power draw is miniscule. The CPU is a NEC MIPS VR4111 RISC processor. I'm not sure what mhz it runs at.
I hope you have as much fun with the Clio as I have!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 999
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Epinions.com ID:
noahm7
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Member: Noah Mapstead
Location: California
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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