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| Home >> Handheld & PDA Reviews: Hewlett Packard Jornada 548 Color Pocket PC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Pocket PC OS is also responsive and well thought out--a big improvement over WinCE. In addition to the suite of powerful pocket applications (Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, PIM, and Scheduler), the Jornada can also serve as a digital voice recorder (to capture those spur-of-the-moment thoughts), an MP3 player, audible content player, and even an e-books reader. The standard 32 MB memory is expandable using standard CompactFlash Type I cards. The product ships with a synchronization cradle (which supports USB or conventional serial interfaces), an extra sync cable (so you don't have to take the cradle everywhere), an AC power adapter, and earbuds. A microphone and a small speaker are built in. For MP3 use, we recommend expanding your RAM to 64 MB with a CompactFlash card to provide an hour of near-CD-quality music. Most Windows users should be able to run through the setup wizard and start using the Jornada and its applications without cracking the manual. Learning to use handwriting recognition, which is integrated into all the applications, requires mastering a few special stylus strokes, but you should be writing smoothly within half an hour. In comparison with Palm's Graffiti system, the Pocket PC system is fully on par. In our tests, setting up a connection to a desktop PC for synchronization was simple. Within 20 minutes, we had installed the ActiveSync software, hooked up the supplied cradle to the AC adapter and a USB port on our PC, and established a connection. If you have an older PC or laptop, you can also synchronize using a slower serial connection. Synchronization is automatic and file transfer is simple using the Windows Explorer-like interface. The only real caveat is that Pocket PC works best in a Windows-centric world. At launch, it appears that there is no support for synchronizing with non-Microsoft e-mail and scheduling applications. (With an optional modem or network-interface card, you can send and receive Internet POP mail directly via your ISP.) The choice between Pocket PC and Palm still comes down to tradeoffs. Palms are still lighter, smaller, and cheaper, and they do the basics beautifully. The Jornada 548 is slightly bigger, 5 ounces heavier, more expensive, but vastly more powerful and flexible. The choice all depends on what you expect your PDA to do. --Thomas Mace Pros:
User Submitted Hewlett Packard Jornada 548 Color Pocket PC ReviewsDate: 2006-01-08 HP Support not there for me. I bought my HP 548 in good faith. Paid good money. When it came time to buy a battery, I got shuffled around the planet talking to the folks (support) in India whom were polite but didn't provide any answers. The result was, I was to the forced to buy (on my own) a questionable battery from another source which doesn't work (it seems to be counterfeit). I'm glad Carly is gone from HP. HP: How about supporting your products from now on ? Only thing is...I won't be among your customers. Ever. Date: 2005-12-16 Not so much a review.. as a "What the?" in the description for this device, Amazon says "Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1973" wow.. I mean, I didn't know Amazon was even around then, let alone using their time machine to beam products from the future to their catalog that shouldn't even exist then.. BRAVO!! Date: 2003-10-22 Quick shipment, but now there is a problem w/no response. The product was shipped quickly. But now I cannot get the Pocket PC to connect to any PC. I have emailed the seller numerous times about this and they will not respond to me. Amazon is abolutely no help either, they will not do anything to help me. If I ever do get the problem fixed, I will change the bad rating for the seller. Date: 2003-02-19 HP Jornada 547/548 Great PDA, beats out any palm type device by a longshot in capability expandability. Only draw back is ever shrinking selection of aftermarket goodies for it due to the processor. Date: 2003-02-03 No Pocket PC 2002 For its day the 548 was a stunning piece of equipment. I have been a Jornada 548 owner since week 1 of its release. I am disappointed to report, however, that the older Jornada models have been left in the dust by the Compaq-HP merger. Ipaq'ers get an upgrade from the Pocket PC OS to the newer, marginally better Pocket PC 2002 OS. Although the OS is only moderately more useful, it is aesthetically more pleasing and is symbolic of the fact that the 548 will receive little attention or support from HP/Compaq ever again. Also, the lack of back up batteries is quite a nuisance when you lose all drivers and software because you forgot to recharge the 548. Furthermore, and this may be my error, I never found a car charger for it which would have been useful given the adequate, but not stellar battery life. I would suggest buying a newer piece of equipment, its worth the dough.
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