Manufacturer: Hewlett Packard Model#: F1825AA Weight: 2lbs Height: 5.20"     Width: 3.10" Length: 1" Average Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars	Retail Price: Unavailable Online Sale Price:
Features: Sharp 12-bit color LCD screen, 4,096 colors Includes MP3 player for listening to digital music, audiobooks, and news Check e-mail and surf the Web Manage your schedule with Pocket Outlook and your finances with Pocket Money What's in the box: Jornada 548, Stylus, AC adapter, Jornada CD-ROM, HP documentation pack, Microsoft ActiveSync CD-ROM, USB cradle

User Submitted Hewlett Packard Jornada 548 Color Pocket PC Reviews (cont...)

Unlike most consultants, I do not carry a lap-top around with me as my clients usually provide a workstation with all the conncetivity that I need for my actual work. The handheld is simply my electronic office, allowing me to keep schedules and contacts, organize tasks, and track finances.

There are many things that I like about the Jornada. For one, the colorful display is crystal clear which means that text is easy to read and pictures are displayed rather brilliantly.

The default applications: MS-Excel, MS-Word, and MS-Money are all well implemented and suit my needs to a tee. It's nice to be able to write a document on the road and then pass it to MS-Word on my PC at the office for printing. Keeping track of time and expenses is a piece of cake with Excel and MS-Money.

For entertainment, the windows media player is a gift! It allows me to dump MP3's or WMA's (even better!) to the PDA from my PC at home. This means I can listen to all my favorite tracks on the road.

The slim design and cool graphite casing make for an attractive yet still compact unit that is rugged enough to handle being tossed around inside my briefcase.

So, where are the cons??? Well, simply there are some oddities with the operating system. There is no 'easy' way of closing an application once it is open. Accessing programs can be a bit of a chore unless you have them preset on the Start menu. Otherwise, I've experienced no problems with the device - which I have now owned for 6 months.

Date: 2001-10-13
Can't live without it
I have a few minor complaints that I will start with. First, you really need to be very critical of how and where you save your items. I think this is the case with all Pocket PCs and not just this unit. If the battery power runs out, you lose all information not backed up to your flash card. If you don't have a flash card, you are out of luck. The nice thing is that you can back up your calendar, task list, and contact list all in one step, or you can just back up everything. Also you can just save your documents directly to your flash card. I could not figure out why I could not play MP3s off of my flash card. I checked the manual and there was no information, so I assumed it could not be done. My friend told me the files need to be within the folder "My Documents". It works, but better documentation would have been nice. Next, the task management is a bit non-intuitive. There are programs that are opened, but there does not seem to be a quick way to close them or switch between them easily. The alt-tab method in windows would have been a nice solution. When I power down, I always have to remember to go to the memory manager and choose "close all tasks", or they will still be running when I return.

Now the good stuff. I carry this thing around with me everywhere. I bought the car power adapter so I can listen to mp3s or books on my commute to work and not worry about power loss. I will get an audio book from the library, and convert it to mp3 with free software readily available on the internet. If I am driving and I need a reminder, I just record my voice with the push of a button. My contacts are all in one place and can be accessed any time I need. I have so many things to do at any given time it was impossible to keep track of them, but now I just write them down in the task list, or the calendar. I will connect to my PC at night and download the latest news and sports, then I can relax on my couch and read it all. You can also transfer and view images from your PC if you want.

Being a programmer, I checked out the SDK to see if I could write a program for this, and it is very easy. There are plenty of free and shareware programs available that people have written that anyone can download. The software support is there for mobile devices and grows every day.

Date: 2001-10-10
Nine months and the honeymoon is over
The features were great. I thought I had the answer to my PC data portability problem. Having it all online is okay. Having it all online and in my pocket--now that was progress. Speed, performance, she had it all. Then 9 months into the romance she completely let me down. I have had to reset this thing more times then I can count. And just last week it seems to have totally locked up for good. I lost all my data on the PPC and it will not resync with my desktop. I place it in the cradle and nothing happens. That's not new but before if I turned it off and on a few times, perhaps slide it in and out of the cradle a few times and perhaps rebooted my PC eventually my PC and PPC would again notice each other. This time nothing works.

This thing should last longer and be more reliable. All the features in the world are of no use at all if the thing is not reliable. For it to only be 9 months old and quit on me says "Don't waste your money."

Date: 2001-10-09
Much rugged than the iPaq
The only problems are poor screen outdors, and no removable battery (Which in only on the new 560 series) anyway is rugged and well finished. And includes good software. I like it a lot.

Date: 2001-10-05
Like a second PC!
The Jornada 548 is my first venture into the world of handhelds. I'm not a techno-weenie, so I was a bit slow getting started. It took me an entire day to figure out how to install all the software, sync up with my PC, and download my first MP3 song (the User's Guide could use some work), but I did it and it works great. I definitely recommend buying "The Pocket PC Handbook" by Dan Hanttula. I got the book even before I got the Jornada (I ordered everything over the Internet), and it was a great help. I also got the Targus keyboard, which is probably the best designed piece of hardware I've ever seen.

The coolest thing of all was when my two daughters were fighting over the one "captive" PC for working on homework. I was able to download a template from Word on my PC that my daughter uses for her current event reports, and open it up in Pocket Word on my Jornada! Hooked up my Targus keyboard, and voila! A second PC! My daughter typed her entire report on my Jornada (in the living room!), and then we uploaded it back to the captive PC for printing. It's like having a second PC (that fits in my purse)! It synced everything perfectly--it couldn't have been simpler. I didn't buy it for use as a second home PC, so WOW, what a bonus! I may have to start hiding it so my kids don't take it over like they have the other PC . . . or maybe I'll just buy them each their own Jornadas!

I'm giving it only four stars for the few quirks I've discovered so far: closing applications is a pain, it's a tad bit slow, and like many other people have reported, the battery drains fast. But overall, I'm pleased, and I'm off to Fry's for my first CompactFlash card for storing MP3 songs!