Rover PC P3: Lubo and inexpensively

Less than one week after the presentation of two new products the company Rover Somputers - PDA and RoverPC P5 RoverPC P3, and already both devices have appeared on sale. RoverPC P5 by the manufacturer is positioned as a business model, unlike the younger PDA series - P3, which is suitable even for beginners. About him, and will be discussed. Design RoverPC P3 frankly pleased. Corps of durable plastic silvery appearance looks solid, on-metal, no creaks, and has decent rigidity. Border around the screen nicely-bluish. Power button is located on the upper side of the device. If you press and hold it when the PDA, then after about a second off the screen backlight. This can be used, for example, when listening to MP3 files to save battery power. Also on the upper side is a slot for SD / MMC (and, according to the manufacturer supports SDIO cards, which is an advantage of the device), an infrared port, slot for a pen and two LEDs. One of the indicators is designed to display the battery status. The second indicator flashes when the alarm clock or a reminder about the meeting. Therefore, even if the sound is totally disabled, for example, during the meeting, P3, nevertheless, can inform you of the occurrence of any event. With regard to structural elements, then everything is standard here. On the left of the housing is located a scroll wheel - JogDial, under which there is button on the recorder, followed by a "nest" Reset. Scroll wheel korotkohodnoe, his depression is well distinguishable by feel, when you turn it sufficiently elastic "resistance". Interesting detail: the body of the left side there is a small slit for the belt, like a camera-shoot cameras. So you can hang your RoverPC P3 on the arm like a mobile phone. On the right side of a standard headphone jack. At the bottom end - built-in synchronization and a connector for power supply. On the rear panel - slide the power supply, which is used if the machine will be a long lay off. The battery is hidden under the back cover, that is, it can not be quickly replaced. On the one hand, it is - a lack, but on the other - the rigidity of the body because of this above. On the front panel - microphone, speaker, buttons, quick launch applications that are illuminated neon cinim device is switched on, and click on them (the backlight button can be disabled) and Four-joystick without activation function. Built-in microphone and speaker provide a decent quality recording and reproduction, in any case it is quite quiet visible. MP3 through the speaker, of course, played poorly. In headphones, as always all right. All the buttons are stiff in moderation, with good tactile feedback. CAM on its own joystick is easy to use and it seemed to me, is executed better than the older brother - RoverPC P5. Dimensions and weight - the smallest in the entire line of PDAs by Rover - 121.7 x 76.8 x 12.5 mm. Weight - only 120 grams, no more than some mobile phones.Machine does seem just a weightless! PDA stylus - a sliding, metal, nothing unusual.

Screen

The screen is transflective technology, size 55 x 73 mm, bright, uniform illumination. You can choose one of the ten levels of illumination, and at a minimum with a PDA is quite possible to work at maximum light is just what is called, hurts the eyes. A minor flaw in the screen that when looking at the bright image on a dark background, if you look closely, noticeable changes in brightness of the band on the sides of the highlights. However, when a dark image on a light background when working with the text of any lanes there. The rest of the screen is excellent!

Filling

Heart RoverPC P3 - processor Intel xScale PXA250, running at a clock frequency of 200MHz. According to information from the company Rover, under intense computing and multimedia processing speed is increased to 400 MHz. However, the method of forcibly changing the frequency of his work, I have not found. Also within the CCP - 32 MB of NAND Flash memory with Stitched running PocketPC 2002, 5 MB of Flash memory are allocated to the polzovatelskie data. RAM - 64 MB, but to speed up the handheld overwrite the OS from Flash into RAM, so user data and programs are free 36 MB. The PDA Li-Ion battery. According to information from the site of Rover its capacity - 1050 mAh, but the passport of the device is given another number - 900 mAh.

What's Included

Supplied RoverPC P3 contains the actual PDA itself and cradle - this the same silver, massive enough. I was pleasantly surprised to find also an additional cable for synchronization with the possibility of connecting the power supply that solves the problem using the device at home, at work and on the road. Home or at work you can put the cradle and the cable always carry with me. Power supply - very small and light. Judging by everything, is made by transformerless technology, the size of it is just a half times more than the usual computer plug. Included in the socket but not connected to the PDA, power supply is not hot. Interestingly, the fork in it - shift, ie to the same power supply can be a single click and flick of the wrist connecting plugs for different countries. It is true, complete only one adapter - a evrorozetku. Also included is a cute bag beige. Go to the CPC in a case you can connect and sync cable and headphones, and power supply - quite an ergonomic version. In addition, the box you will find a standard disc with the software, but on it I am not going to stop. About the software's talk a little lower.

Coft

First of all, I want to mention completely Russified running PocketPC 2002. Personally, I can easily work with the English language, but still very pleasant, when the PDA to communicate with you in their native language. Set of predefined applications is certainly not so rich as those of competitors - HP, Compaq, etc. However, for a budget machine that is enough. On a typewriter is a Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, Microsoft Reader, MSN Messenger, a calculator, a terminal client. Of the games pre-installed only the "Solitaire." Also there is a folder called "Utilities", in which three you will find three programs: eBackup to backup information in Flash memory, eViewer - to view pictures and eMenu - utility for launching programs.

Communication capabilities

RoverPC P3 is associated with a desktop computer only for bus USB. It is also possible to communicate via IrDA-port. Connect the PDA to the desktop or through the cradle, or via the sync cable: the one and the other is already in the kit. Unfortunately, I have not been able to verify device support SDIO, but the company Rover says RoverPC P3 supports expansion cards.As for memory cards, then with them, I assure you, no problem.

Performance

To work as a notebook for reading electronic books and games opportunities RoverPC P3 enough. Videos it plays, in spite of the newer processor, worse than the Senior model - RoverPC P5. P5 advantage due to the presence of graphics accelerator chip MediaQ 1132.

I measured performance using the benchmark Virtual Office Benchmark. Here they are:


Floating point = 6.21


Integer = 13.53


BitBlt = 32.35


StretchBlt = 1.10


Ellipse = 0.87


Rectangle = 1.00


Rounded Rectangle = 0.56


Memory Allocation = 6.63


Fill = 0.82


Move 0.31


Text = 1.76
Comparison with other budget PDAs can be found here. Yes, RoverPC P3 is clearly not the leader in performance. What is the reason, hardware faults or whether the whole thing in software, File Type hard. Maybe it's the consequences of Russification of the system, although the most likely cause of the slower memory, a built-in device. However, even an outsider called P3 is also impossible to put machine solves the problem with success, visually it works very quickly, "the brakes" no. For routine tasks that are solved with the help of PDA, RoverPC P3 performance is enough.

Battery life

While reading e-books from backlit derived at least, when working as a regular organizer, RoverPC P3 can last hours of 5-6. MP3 playback with the backlight off - 6-7 hours. For those who often play games on a handheld computer and watching videos, the battery capacity would likely be enough. This is the price paid for low weight and dimensions. High capacity battery inevitably heavier the CCP and increased its thickness. To full capacity battery is charging about 2 hours.

General impressions and summaries

So, what can we say about the new model PDA Rover. I liked it: stylish design, light weight, small size, clear and bright screen, reasonable price. Externally P3 looks good in both male and female hands. Of the drawbacks - only a small battery time. However, the battery capacity is never enough. In the pros, you can also Record the good for a budget Pocket PC configuration: availability of cover and extra sync cable. And do not forget about the three-year warranty and a developed network of service centers Rover. Oh, and an afterword. RoverPC P3 - it's actually the Russian version of the Taiwanese machines MiTAC Mio DigiWalker 338. When hard reboot or turn the device on-screen logo appears Mio (Apparently, it is not sewn into the OS and change it had not yet). Rover Computers went on sale a certain scheme of licensed devices under its own trademark. Similarly produced a lot of notebooks. In addition, Rover provides all of its handheld service and three-year warranty, as well as fully localized operating system and provides for its renewal. The authors, translation:

Timur Artykov