Time flies. It seemed only yesterday that I brought home a blue box with a handheld Sasio BE-300, and that's on you - almost half a year has passed ... I have to say - a good machine and money to their small stands. The closest her rival - fiscal Palm m130 with a color screen. This class of similar computers (if you do not pay attention to the soft fillings), intended for either constrained in the media user, or for a person who has enough attractions and in addition to the CCP. So, a competitor of BE-300 (diminutive nicknames over time as something of themselves "resorbed, now I call her just" BE-s three hundred ", without any kind of familiarity) Computer wonderful in all respects. But look what happens - m130 is cheaper and has less than BE-300. It lies almost in all stores, and BE-300 will have to search (the price for it in Moscow shops remains unchanged - 235-275 dollars). What does this mean? The high demand for the Casio BE-300 and a lack of demand for Palm m130 (relative, of course, just all ran to deliver the first Cheap Palm with a color screen and is clearly overdone). That is, BE-300 is quite competitive and today, after nearly a year since release. Without hardware upgrades and major changes in computer software and can now cope with the tasks assigned to it. Although ... That "while" and we'll talk.
Hardware romp
The first step is a reservation - all comments about the Casio BE-300 have emphasized the subjective nature. To a computer that is always with me, not an open mind. This helper, and entertainment, and even a friend. (Oh, Satan - we have the glands begin to humanize what is going on, when computers will be embedded in watches or directly into the brain?) Here and sympathy. This and other demands.
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From the very chepuhovogo - translucent plastic cover, which is completed BE-300, went to the farthest corner of a desk drawer in the first day. It's awkward and dysfunctional. The cover is designed to protect from damage the screen and the hardware buttons on the front panel. And it properly protect them, but requires at the same time more security for itself. In a folding cover increases the size of the CPC so that clings to the surrounding objects (eg, burgher my stomach). Nothing terrible happens, cover with a contemptuous crash falls off, that's all. In place of the installed without problems. Then he flies away. And it also opens with a bang. Intermediate position, as indicated by curly cuts in the computer, keeps the lid in half-state. Throws further - Cracks ... In short, put this thing and do not recall more than five months. I take the leather cover ... No, do not use it, just asking prices. Nothing decent does not get, and if they come across, it is very very prohibitive - toad strangling ... Even before the screen lid was dismissed stub communication (or system) connector. Stub it is designed as a miniature plastic strip with a projection for a coin, screwdriver or other means at hand (personally, I set out to use the nail varnish one lady, but ran into confusion and retreated). Stub bounced itself and lost. And with delight found, was placed in the same drawer in the same corner. I understand the electrical connectors must be protected - from dust, dirt, from all piggishness. But while the developers would be nice to try out their own invention in practice. Do not know a single user, who would not lose the damn plug (not only on the BE-300, they are a disgrace to all parked their cars) ... However, a trifle, of course. No protection system connector - and is not necessary. All-time active service with the connector contacts slo nothing had happened ... Or am I chistyulya? Housing machines does not cause any objections.True, at first I thought that painted silver inserts on the sides of the body lose their color - the guiding slots wiped off the cradle projections. But it was limited to a pair of dark stripes, which to the naked eye can hardly see ... Oh, those experiencing a private owner! Buy an old car and rushes around him, like Kvočka. Scratch a breeze - preinfarction state, some nut came off - the direct way in the mental hospital ... so then - the car, not a pocket toy. (Do not worry, I'm with myself).
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A more or less serious. No matter the connection holds the cradle and the connector device. No, everything is fine, any damage ... but no machine in the cradle got some mobility. Anyway, cowboy energetic movements (such as - cast machine with a blunder in the "bed") is best avoided. Painfully delicate design .... As a positive example we can recall the construction of the cradle of computers Sony CLIE. I had to deal with the very first model - with the S300. Blade and guides hold the machine securely and safely. Your computer can "pull" from the "crib" in either direction - by ourselves, up, sideways. Nothing terrible happens, the contacts remain intact, no loose or creaking ... And the most ugly design - a Palm m130 and referred to his predecessor, m125. Not only is the cradle of models borrowed from the older series and not as it should be adjacent to the lower edge of the casing PDA and it will connect with some terrific gnashing of teeth.
On starvation rations
All this is nonsense - compared with the problem of power BE-300 ... This is a problem because the problem. What 6 hours of battery operation? What 4:00 listening to music? A 2 hour with a small tail do not want? That's how much work Casio BE-300 with all of the maximum brightness of lights, and when you run demanding applications, such as playing MP3, video, or three-dimensional toys (there are, for example, known to all holders of BE-300 remarkable "letalka-shooter» Metallion). Negligible capacity internal battery - a headache for all owners Casio BE-300. An external battery, whose image can be seen on the package computer to our brother in that bull red rag. Where, you say to me, buy this imported battery? "Expensive", - said Moscow sellers - for eighty dollars, this battery no one will. " "No more is spent on the BE-300-money - I object -" or do you advise me to give up on a hand machine and spend another two hundred fifty bucks on a color Palm? »Where, you say to me, to go" behovladeltsu? Who complain to the vest? Output, of course. It is only necessary to have a soldering iron and hands to it - to dazzle the external battery pack itself (an article about this homemade published recently). But the fact of the matter is that - blind. A machine, meanwhile, branded. Made in Japan. Impossibly beautiful and elegant as a Parisian mademoiselle ... As to the overseas quirk prisobachit box with batteries? Pharmacy gum? Corn plaster? Fabric Velcro? Oh, do not make me laugh ...
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| The external battery pack, hand ... |
Seems to have to wait for the promised MakTsentr industrial unit, which must somehow be attached to the computer (otherwise, what a commercial), the slots for this machine is on the case - this time. And two - regularly ask them the same firm an extra battery (water, as you know, sharpening stone).Eighty dollars is not the money to move to another platform. But with such a microscopic energy stored on board the BE-300, rather useless toy than tool. By the way, the recommendations of the Casio itself to the limit to reduce the screen brightness to prolong the battery life of the computer, I do not accept. What does it mean - to reduce? I do not see it. I do not see, if you do not bring the screen brightness for at least three-quarters of the maximum ... The Palm m130 brightness cut is not necessary, but on the BE-300 can not get away. It's a shame, you know! For the blood shed ... The problem is, in fact, very serious. Use a PDA only to lie on the couch and read a detective - an expensive (for reading on the couch I have a laptop, which on its own battery, by the way, working longer BE-300). Take the same machine with them to the middle of the day to hear the plaintive squeak of the system power - they say it's time to recharge - also to anything ... or Casio BE-300 for anything worthwhile is not suitable, and we really should not have to spend money on it?
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I think that these glorious cars must be sold together with the memory card (it will not buy all the owners of BE-300 - at the nominal 16 megabytes of "RAM" at considerable appetites programs for Windows CE does not earn a lot) and an additional battery (plus cables, adapters, branded pens, wallets, covers - all of the useful and useless "pocket-computer" small things, the acquisition of which is absolutely impossible to resist). Exact - next. If you have money, you take the car with the additions. No - I dig a bit and come to the store at another time. The most curious thing that even a fully-equipped memory card and extra battery, the machine remains the best value and the cost will be no more than 380-385 dollars, a hundred-odd cheaper than the very low-cost PC-class Pocket PC. In this case, the user remains the possibility of gradual modernization - a kind of loan, when the basic configuration is already in his pocket, and eventually those sweet makeweights, which we just talked about.
Case system
Oddly enough, but personally I have no way offended by the fact that the Casio BE-300 is installed truncated version of the operating system Windows CE 3.0. Moreover, if the system is truncated and then it is done correctly and not without good cause. I do not remember in his typewriter single critical failure that plunged me into the hopeless despair ... And the Pocket PC such an accident happened! (I assume only from personal experience). System menu by which users interact with the handheld assistant, not the top of programming art. There are some "bugs", not without reason, Casio has produced several packages upgrade operating system components. But, in general, to communicate with the newly purchased computer is very simple. For the inexperienced user, this is the same elementary simple machine, like the computers of the family Palm. Then, when there is a desire to see on the PDA is something more interesting rectangles menu system, you begin to pile up a variety of shells. I've tried them all. Began with a package of SQ, which is "lived" on my machine for three months. Then looked closely at KCmenu II. Found this shell beautiful, spectacular, but extremely uncomfortable. Experienced a variety of shells, whose names as primitive as the programs themselves - «menu number so and so" and point. Now happily relocated to Epod version 2.2 (for the quality of Russification which bow maestro Shveps `y).
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| Favorite EPOD 2.2 |
My favorite Epod (I recently had a very different opinion about him, from what does not refuse - saying that gladly move to Epod, if we detect any outstanding qualities, found and moved) requires the mandatory presence of a memory card and takes on her some space. This is the only drawback shell, although not as significant. Not greedy enough when buying flash memory cards, and the problem is removed. On a 64-MB card can fit everything you need (including business applications, dictionaries, books, toys). A few words about Russification. With each new version of localization professionals RussKey MakTsentr can shoot two birds - translated into Russian system messages on-screen keyboard, menu names, and to catch minor "bugs" without which it is a part of the operating system. Running more advanced, a test version of a full translation of BE-300 in Russian language RuassKey 2.0, I was glad to find that all the programs, starting with a notebook and ending with the browser to work fine with the Cyrillic alphabet, interact with each other and do not create absolutely no problems. For the first time since the acquisition of BE-300, I realized what is this wonderful thing - a pocket PC. Previously, we had talked more to the touch. He - in English, I - in Russian.
Software suffering
Yes, with programs for the Casio BE-300 case nevazhnetskie. Few programs, as necessary and useful - even less. A truncated version of the operating system Windows CE 3.0, the application processor once popular family of MIPS, a limited amount of memory (a flash memory card suitable for storing programs and data - like disk drives for personal computers), all of which reduces the number of programs suitable for running on the BE-300. In addition, for the normal installing programs on the Casio BE-300 uses a unique system of timing. Therefore, in order to properly "register" program from the created for the Pocket PC or older machines, and capable to run on the BE-300 (which can be determined empirically, downloading free programs from the internet and trying them one by one - a typewriter from these experiments did not will, if correctly remove the "tracks" erasable applications) have to replace full-time synchronizer PC Connect the standard Pocket PC Software ActiveSync. However, they do not work, forcing disconnect one and then another (the fact that written specifically for the BE-300 programs are installed only through a PC Connect). In short, no adventure is complete ... everything you need from the software is. Text editors (unpretentious), table (smart), planners (alas, only paid) games. But the number of programs for the BE-300 is huge for a "full-fledged» Pocket PC in hundreds, and for the Palm - the thousands. What to do? Part of the problem is solved with a software emulation of other computers and game consoles. For example, installing the emulator NES (the most stable and not demanding compute-intensive PDA), you get a colored pocket gaming console - the same Dandy, that in the early nineties brought to mind all the underage Russia (in the West, he pohozyaynichal still in the eighties). Toys to the NES on the Internet as much as necessary (in my estimation is not less than five hundred). On the BE-300 are almost all - with very few exceptions (the dignity of not machines Casio, and quality written software emulator). Drawback - the use of management games, hardware and software buttons. That is, the playing field is not controlled by a stylus. Usually in the game for BE-300 (or any PDA), game objects can be manipulated by touching the pen to the screen. Here we have to remember the skills to use the gamepad - if they are, these skills have ever been. Improved emulator - SNES. This is different and higher level of quality.Stereo (which is on a typewriter can be heard only through headphones or external speakers), great graphics - Super Nintendo's own persona. Under the SNES emulator are not all games have to be selected empirically. Also can not do without utilities distribution of RAM, since most games require more memory than required by the system BE-300. Of the computer "software-bogus" comes to mind emulator ZX Spectrum. Given the number of programs for the old platform (hundreds of thousands!), Their free and available (downloaded instantly as it is very small in volume), the life of the owner Casio BE-300 looks in pink. Alas, it is not. Emulators, emulators, but for the BE-300 has not written a decent text editor, even remotely approaching the functional saturation of Pocket Word. The same applies to other business applications - program planning, presentations, browse databases (there are a couple programs, but to me they liked) and so on. In any case, the number and variety of computer software Palm still unrivaled. Machine Pocket PC to this program far in abundance, and Casio BE-300 - so far. After a weak battery is a second reason for my doubts - do not hurry I with the acquisition of BE-300. To be honest - today I would take a color Palm ... I guess ...
Good man, sit down - three
The final score, which I dare to expose the Casio BE-300 is a sturdy trio - on the traditional five-point scale. True, the five do not shine nobody, and the computers Pocket PC 2002 only to pull a three-minus. This seemingly low estimate reflects my personal attitude to the situation in the market of handheld PDAs. Popular Computers Palm, get on my amateur exam quadruple-minus (for lack of multimedia capabilities), have leading positions not only because of some supernatural qualities (they simply do not) but because of the availability of these machines to the widest range of users. Hence the huge number of programs, including - free. Whether today is the same abundance of programs for the Pocket PC, who would have paid attention to the cost of computers themselves? Would buy it. And on the other computers would not pay attention.
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However, it is not so - in a sense is not so primitive. The unprecedented success of expensive iPaq, suddenly overshadowed the ubiquitous Palm, - in their perfection, flawless construction, and not the quantity of software. Success is always caused by a number of reasons, especially in high technology fields. Attempting the same company to release a cheap Casio Pocket PC analog clearly failed. Among the simplifications that radically affect the final cost of the BE-300, is very, very controversial. "Dohlenky" battery, and the absence of infrared port - the most obvious. Computer can be used in conjunction with a cell phone, but only if the cable connection. It's awful inconvenient and, in general, is problematic. Where to find drivers to support the exchange of BE-300 with a cell phone? Do they exist? And will it work like a symbiosis without the proper software? It seems that once again will have to experiment ... Meanwhile, an infrared port (which cost - a few cents!) Completely would remove any difficulty. Notice in the cheapest Palm IR port is installed and working fine ... Therefore, to cell phone buy Casio BE-300 is useless. Alas. Another significant limitation - the specificity of the operating system installed on the BE-300. Say what you like, and programs for this machine is woefully small. Moreover, the company promised Casio upgrade your operating system to Windows CE.NET status in no way changes. Quite the contrary - is aggravating scarcity of software. Judge for yourself, and programs for Windows CE.NET still not enough to swear by. And we, the owners Casio BE-300, will also seek out special editions - for processor MIPS.And check the program for the demands to the amount of RAM, which is in the BE-300 does not add any means ... The very same Windows CE.NET for the BE-300 has already caused in the camp of frustrated users. The same truncated version of the base operating system with some, perhaps curious about the changes. But, I repeat, truncated.
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| Metalion looks on the small screen just fine ... |
Summing up, frankly - I machine and was delighted and disappointed. Cheered the high quality of performance (Casio - a Casio), balanced performance (same Metallion looks on the small screen just fine), an acceptable set of features (music by stereotelefony sounds great, read books on the BE-300 is a pleasure and Scribbles handwritten notes funny entertainment ) and, of course, reasonable cost. Color PDA for two hundred and fifty - is not a miracle? A disappointment - permanent "hungry syncope, multiple hardware" Beheading "and a small amount of programs. It's time to exclaim indignantly - and what do you want? It wanted to. And leave it in the near future is not going to. And what happens - let's see ... Believe me, no - not a hand rises to disable it from the mains. Like saucers of milk deprive a helpless kitten. And she lives in his crib, only occasionally going on a short journey into the next room - to entertain me with new books, so crazy games "in line" ... to more serious travel in my pocket, it has not yet matured. The authors, translation:
Nicholas Nadezhdin