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December 22, 2003
Disappointed Reaction to VGA PDA Screen
The Register has a preliminary mini-review on the new e800 Pocket PC from Toshiba (shown). The most, if not only, notable feature on the e800 is its full VGA (480x640) screen, which has double the resolution of the next-highest resolution PDA screens (the 320x48 screens found on some palmOne and Sony Palm OS devices). However, the verdict isn't all good:
"The high resolution display is a bit of a mixed bag. The standard Pocket PC applications don't support the it, and nor, actually does much else. Toshiba provides the ClearVue Suite from Westtek, which allows you to look at, but not work with, Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and a range of image formats. Reading Word documents without scrolling horizontally requires them to be rendered to a very small font indeed - it's not advisable to do this for long periods and some people will find it simply too hard on they eye to bother with at all.It's also irritating that you need to effectively soft reset every time you want to switch resolutions. Finally, in standard 240 x 320 the display looks rather blocky due to relatively large pixel size. In short, I wasn't actually as impressed by the high resolution as I had expected to be. I can see, though, that with increased application support, landscape viewing modes, and good WLAN access to web and other content, that this feature could one day become something very useful indeed."
That's too bad. It sounds like the same type of growing pains that Palm OS devices experienced when Sony and HandEra pushed the limit of Palm OS screens past 160x160 a few years ago. However, given Microsoft's very tight-fisted approach to permitting vendor-driven changes to the Pocket PC platform, support for Toshiba's VGA screen may be virtually non-existant for the foreseeable future. Too bad, too.
Posted by Craig in Mobile & PDAs
Comments
It's not that bad actually since the hack to view all application in VGA mode has been issued on Brighthand.
This unit with the VGA unlocked is unbelievable. Puts anything else to shame.
ALL APPLICATIONS ARE VIEWABLE IN FULL VGA MODE.
Posted by: JRB at January 4, 2004 11:08 AM
Interesting...I hadn't seen that. I did a bit of digging about the hack (to get the full scoop for you GearBits readers), and came up with some interesting caveats. Per BargainPDA:
"A coder operating under the name deez has produced a small program for the Toshiba e800/805 PocketPC that will allow all applications to use the 480 x 640 screen, bypassing Toshiba's lockout on unapproved programs.
As with any hack, serious stability problems and other issues can result from the use of this program, known as ResFix. Some users on Brighthand's forums are reporting that the hack results in their built-in WiFi being disabled, some have reported other issues. Use at your own risk, and of course do a backup before installation--you must perform a hard-reset to install the hack, and while you can not restore a backup on top of the hack without causing conflicts, a backup would be invaluable if and when you decided to stop using it."
So, it does allow you to use VGA on all (or most) apps, but the trade-offs seem significant. Definitely a cool trick for geeks, but certainly not ready for the masses.
Posted by: Craig at January 4, 2004 11:15 AM
Pros: The Shiba is f#&*ing great. The hack works fine. It is small but super freezing crisp. I could read it no prob.
It is 10 times faster than my h5555 My videos and music can play at the same time tanks to da 2mb of video.
Things I can definitly get over:
Slight hum from the speaker when you turn all the sound controls up.
In my wool coat pocket. It will reset completely forcing me to use the back up.(which is real easy to use)
However, I found that it was the static from my coat that wz screwing it up. I use a static bag, custom cut by me to get passed that and it has worked fine for 1.5 wks. I'm sure with a nice case (which I can't find will help)
Anyone willing to grow with a gadget should get this one. Its technology will be around for a long time.
Posted by: gettreading at January 22, 2004 9:41 PM
My 805 also has done two resets. It's just a little more than irritating if I'm away from the backup.
Also can't find an aluminum case without a bunch of holes cut into it. What gives? Doesn't anyone actually work with these PDAs?
Hopefully the ClearVue Application will be updated soon.
Posted by: art at March 6, 2004 10:55 PM