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Hey everyone!
I have an e805 and am looking to "supe" it up with a keyboard and a memory card.
For the keyboard I am not quite sure which one to get but I want to try and keep the price below $50.
I am also looking at getting a LARGE memory card and have been looking mainly at the Hitachi 4Gb CF microdrive but was wondering there was anything else that would give me more "byte" for my buck!
I would greatly appreceate any suggestions, Thanks!!
I just got a 2g Hitachi Microdrive yesterday, and it works great. Just plug it in and go! I loaded 3 full movies, and 6 1-hour TV episodes onto it, along with some audiobooks and photos, and still have about 3/4 for a gig left on the card. I will probably trade up to the 4g eventually tho. The only thing I can tell you is to stay away from Magicstor drives. Those seem to not work very well.
I have not tried to use a KB with mine, but from what I understand, you can get a USB host adapter online, and then use a regular KB with it, as long as you find drivers that will work with the PPC. (Try searching on Brighthand, I think that's where I saw the details on that.)
Good luck!
Just curious.... hows the battery drain on the microdrives? I've been tempted to go that route over static CF cards, but would like to get some input.. hows the price comparison as well actually?
... as for the keyboard question, I've been using a Targus IR keyboard with my HX4700. Not a "perfect" solution, has some minor issues.... maybe I'll whip up a short review! (if anyones interested).
Bru...
Bruanor:
hmm... the microdrive prices are excellent. I am looking at a few 4GB ones on ebay "but it now" for around $160 - $170, provantave.com also has pretty good prices.
Bruanor, you bring up a good point with the battery life, I had not thought about a battery life issue and since I am buying the microdrive to mainly play movies and music, maybe I should think twice... a quick google search only revealed someone with older 1GB IBM microdrives that said they only got 3hours when running music off their IPAQ!
Can someone give us any first hand knowledge of how a microdrive affects battery life?
Cheers,
Simon
The battery drains faster, no question. Maybe shaving 1/2 hour to 45 minutes off the total battery charge for the day on the e805, which does not have great battery life in the first place. I always carry a AA Battery charger with me to "top off" in case I run low. The are so cheap on ebay, that it just makes sense to me to have it. (These can completely recharge the e805 within about 45 minutes from 30% to 100%) However, with normal use, it has not been an issue so far. I charge overnight every day, and start the day with 100%. I usually read ebooks during the day, as slow moments at work, or watch a few snippets of video, and do my banking in Pocket Money. (Total use, about 1 and a half hours) and am left with about 50% on the battery by the time I get home. If I listed to audiobooks during my commute of and hour, I usually have about 40% by the time I get home.
I don't have statistics on the actual battery drain, so I hope this "real life" usage helps you.
That seems reasonable to me. The batt is going to drain a bit faster anyway, it is an actual HD after all. I use my ppc primarily for music, and with streaming audio over wifi, I can get... 3+ hours roughly before it gets too about 20%, but I've got a sync cable plugged in most of the day to, at the very least, maintain the battery.
I haven't done a proper test of battery life while watching a movie, tho from my experience, I wouldn't expect it too die before it was played out. Although, it would be quite low I'd expect at the end.
And it would just be too nice to have 4 gig of portable storage
Bru...
I agree, 4gigs of portable storage would be great. I'm thinking of trading up to the 4gig microdrive, but at the same time am wondering if I need that much. I think I REALLY want it so I can put my friends with their little ipods to shame by showing them that I can have more storage than their ipod mini, and do 1000 times as much with my device.
I already have a 20gig mp3 player (not an ipod...the Gateway player), but I find I never use it anymore since I can do so much more with the PPC.
I have watched a 1 hour show and had plenty of battery life left, so I don't think you have much to worry about with watching a single movie. But, I would definitely recommend having a power source to top up, whether battery or AC after.
As far as pricing on microdrives, I have seen a 4gig online for about $170, but I would still buy from my local CompUSA store. I take the online pricing with me, and talk to my business sales guy, and he usually comes pretty close to online pricing for me. (They currently retail for 199.99 at CompUSA)
That's why I can trade up to the 4gig drive, cause I can take back the 2gig drive easily, and get the bigger one.
I'm curious to know if the larger drive will cause larger battery drain tho...
Well, I decided to upgrade from 2gig to 4 gig yesterday.
I haven't tried to check out the battery drain with the larger card yet, but I'll let you know.
Also, I purchased at CompUSA for $175.86, if anyone is interested in purchasing at a brick and mortar store.
It works great! It does seem to be slightly larger drain than the 2g tho, but not by much. The e805 doesn't have the greatest battery life tho, so under heavy use (playing video, etc) it goes pretty quickly. The total drain time on the device before the dreaded "ding dong" of low battery warning (mine is set to 30%) is about 2 to 2 and a half hours, which really blows compared to my ipaq 4355, which seems to run forever without recharging.
The tradeoffs are worth it to me, however. I gave serious thought to getting the 4700, but decided to wait until WM2005 comes out before I get another iPaq. The e805 will do me just fine until then, and I think the resale value will hold enough until that point.
Anyway, I love the drive, I was able to switch everything audio and video to the microdrive, and leave my SD card for ebooks only, and with a 1gig card, that can hold alot of books!
Flash memory of comparable size is coming down in price, but is still way higher, and this seems to meet my needs well.
Besides, now I have a total of 5.25gig of memory, which with my VGA screen will put those ipod mini devotees in my family to shame!
I have ordered a Belkin F8U1500 from ebay for $40 USD with shipping.
I will most likely post a review of the keyboard when after using it for a while.
Regarding the microdrive... I have been keeping my eyes on them. If anyone doesn't know about Froogle.com, then this is an excellent time to learn to use it. It is excellent for shopping. Currently Provantage.com has the best prices on microdrives, a 4GB selling for $163 USD; J&R.com also has pretty good deals. But I am most likely going to buy from ebay as I have found a seller with lots of auctions selling at minimum of 149.99 plus shipping. The prices of microdrives have been dropping like crazy since hitachi released its 6GB one.
I might wait a little longer to see if they drop much more. There is hardly anybody buying them anymore off ebay compared to in January February so this has drived the prices down considerably I think.
Cheers,
Simon
There is alot to be said for online shopping, but there is just as much to be said for brick and mortar.
Part of my reason for choosing an actual store was the fact that some people have had trouble with microdrives not working in their device, so I wanted to be able to test it in the device, and make sure everything worked and I could access the card from the device without a problem.
When I opened a brand new 2gig drive inside the store to test in my 805, as soon as I opend it, it was apparent there was a problem with the casing on the drive. On the sides of the drive, where the grooves are that slide into the unit. They were all chewed up. Now, the drive worked just fine, but I asked them to replace the drive, because moving the card in and out of a card reader and my device, I was concerned that this may develop into a problem over time. So, they replaced the card on the spot.
Then, I decided to upgrade to the 4gig instead of the 2 gig, which I did as a quick stop on my way home from work, for no other reason than because I wanted to.
I paid about $10 to $20 more than the going online rates of about $150 to $160, but at $175, it was totally worth it to me.
Just my .02 for you.
hey JDTagish, I meant no disrespect with me online shopping spiel... I was just giving an update on what I was doing. I think it's great that you bargained and bought your microdrive from a brick and mortar store and don't get me wrong, If the prices in stores here in Canada were anything close to the prices in US stores, I would buy in a store. The fact of the matter is is that I would have to go to a camera store and shell out around $350 - $400 CAD to get a microdrive here... So I figure my best bet is to save $150 and get the drive from the US and since I don't have a car then my only choice is to buy online.
Cheers,
Simon
Hey Focus,
I took NO offense to looking online for products, or to your post!
I admit, I did not realize you were in Canada, cause I know how hard it can be to get stuff there. I spent a couple of weeks in Castlegar for work, and I was amazed at how much some things cost there, even after the exchange rate. Catslegar was probably the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life, but it was so totally different than LA, where I live! They had one (and ONLY one) store in town for hardware/general merchandise/electronics, etc. and the selection was OK but not great, compared to home.
I was only commenting on brick and mortar, because of the initial problem I had with the drive. I've heard some stories from people who have purchased online, and had real difficulty returning product that were totally defective, and wanted to remind people that retail stores do negotiate on pricing sometimes. Lots of people forget that.
However, in your case not all that applicable, since elcetronics seem to have about a 30% price overage than in the US.
Either way, I just wanted to let you know I was not offended at all, k?
Thanks for the info!
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