For Lovers of the Pocket PC OS
Written: Sep 27 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Beautiful Screen, Excellent Hardware
Cons: Expensive, Larger Than Most
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| RichBoston's Full Review: Casio Cassiopeia EM-500 Pocket PC |
Were I to recommend one of the many Pocket PC OS PDAs on the market this would have to be right up there. The Compaq iPaqH3650 was my previous top Pocket PC choice but I think this would have it beat by a slim margin were it not for its size. Casio definitely needs to have its engineers spend some time on miniaturization.
The operative word here is “chunky.” The EM-500 is roughly the same size as the E-115 or the new E-125.
Although I am a devout Palm OS guy, I keep an open mind. While I don’t feel the Pocket PC OS equals the ease with which the Palm OS helps to organize your life, it is certainly much improved over the Windows CE OS. Also, a number of the Pocket PCs integrate their OS into much better hardware than anything I’ve seen in a Palm OS – including the new SONY CLIE.
While I couldn’t imagine dealing with the Windows CE OS, the Pocket PC is much friendlier. It seems that if Microsoft tries one….. more….. time, they may have the OS of choice by all.
My second concern overall for the Pocket PCs is price. Primarily due to color screens the prices remain above the budgetable reach of many. Hopefully this will change in the next few years as the prices for the components go down and supplies become more adequate.
Many people have emailed me wanting to know where to get a certain PDA as it is out of stock everywhere they’ve looked. There has been an industry wide shortage of certain components – primarily the LCD screens. This has lead to spot shortages of PDAs, cell phones, and other devices that utilize LCD displays.
My best advice if you cannot obtain this or another PDA of your choice locally is to do a search through one of the web shopping sites. Also if you click on “Find out where to buy this item” to the left of this review it will take you to links for many vendors which are likely to carry the item.
Be forewarned that PDAs are one of the hottest selling electronic items and between that fact and the occasional shortages you are less likely to find discounts. The newer models especially are likely to sell at list price. The older, one generation removed models are more likely to be found at reduced prices.
The Casios use a backlit TFT display which is less conducive to outdoor use than the iPaq active matrix display. I think the Casio screen is a bit more readable, however, and the colors more vibrant. It’s mostly a matter of choice and you can’t go wrong with either one. Do be aware though of the differences and if you use your PDA outdoors or under brightly lit conditions you may want to choose the iPaq over the EM-500. The iPaq also has the size advantage.
As with the Palm m100, Visors, and Nokia cell phones a younger market is being targeted with color and a zippier ad campaign. The EM-500 is available in 5 colors.
The EM-500 is the first of a new line that utilizes the new multimedia card memory system (MMC) which have up to 64MB of storage capacity. My personal needs are more modest and while I am perfectly happy with the 16MB of included RAM I would have liked to see 32MB in this price range. If you make extensive use of MP3s, record meetings, or dictate notes this may have more immediate value to you. Right now, there are no other uses I know of for the port beyond memory. It would be speculation to guess what Casio plans and I suggest keeping an eye on the Casio web site.
Other standard features include:
>>> USB Cable
>>> Microphone
>>> Speaker
>>> Stereo headphone jack
>>> Replaceable Lithium Ion rechargeable battery which allows you to keep a spare available. The battery is listed at 6 hours and I was getting almost 5 with heavy use. This is reasonable for a color screen which zaps a lot of juice.
The bundled software is the standard Pocket PC fare which is to say, more than adequate. Casio also includes:
>>> Palm data converter
>>> CF Backup tool
>>>Mobile video player
>>> Mobile video converter
An optional modem and service provider are required in order to surf the internet. If this is your primary reason for considering this I would suggest looking elsewhere. There are much better devices available for this purpose.
I would strongly suggest looking at the Compaq iPaq H3650 before purchasing this and determining which model suits your personal preferences.
If you are a first time prospective PDA owner I would also have you try any of the Palm units. The Palm OS remains best to me and if you are willing to sacrifice a color screen you can save quite a bit of money. My favorites are the Palm IIIxe, Palm Vx, or the new SONY CLIE.
Reviews for these and other PDAs can be found by going to my profile page.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
RichBoston
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Member: Rich
Location: Boston, MA
Reviews written: 92
Trusted by: 134 members
About Me:
I live for the latest gizmos and doo-dads!
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