Pricing

Retail Price: $239.99 = £135

Av. online selling prices: £75 exc VAT+Del

Purchase Price: £63 inc VAT+Del [eBay - New]

Specifications

• Minimum of 10MB/second sequential read speed for ultra-fast image viewing and data transfer
• Minimum 9MB/second sequential write speed lets you capture large image files faster
• Backed by a lifetime limited warranty (10 Years Europe)
• Low power consumption for longer battery life

Usage

I purchased this 2GB card because I didn’t have enough space on my Pocket PC. Before purchasing this card I had 2×256MB SanDIsk SD cards (Standard) and about 150MB Internal memory. As my last two SanDisk SD Cards have been perfectly reliable I felt that purchasing another SanDisk card would be a wise choice. I am going to be using this card for pretty much everything, photos, applications, files, music etc. I already have a SanDisk USB SD Card reader/writer which is USB2/Plug and Play so that makes it a lot easier to transfer files to and from the SD Card at high speeds wherever I am.

I was slightly worried before purchasing the card that it would not be recognised on my HP iPaq rx3715 PDA. I checked around and a few people who had purchased 2GB cards had confirmed that they worked but not this particular model. The SanDisk website was also slightly unclear about it, but I went for it anyway. As you can see on the PDA screenshot, it does work pefectly well.

Evaluation

This SD card is fast and light and as they claim, it doesn’t use too much power (though I am yet to test that properly). I am glad I waited and purchased a 2GB SD card rather than the 1GB which I was going to get a while back – it was worth the wait. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the two 256MB SD Cards but I guess they will still come in useful.

Overall Rating:

External Links:
SanDisk Ultra II Webpage

I was playing “liberty city” and to my eyes the quality was just as good as the PS2, I am aware of the fact that many people who read blogs and who know just the slightest about PC will loath all forms of consoles, but you know what this is different.

I think that I could spend a whole day in the back of a car with one of these playing games or watching movies. I think by now most probably have seen the PSP on TV or even in real life, if you have seen it on TV well all I have to say is that it doesn’t do the PSP any justice, the screen is so much bigger than you could imagine but saying that the console itself isn’t too big.

I have thought quite hard to find some bad things on the PSP here is what I have come up with………………………….. …. …. ..umm.. no but seriously the only thing that I could think of well in my eyes is the fact that they use some crappy UMD, I think if I am right in saying that is stands for Universal Media Disk these are some small cassettes type CD’s which can fit in to the palm of you hand but they really do cost an arm and a leg. The only other bad points of the PSP is the things it doesn’t have (like the feature of being a mobile phone) which if it did have I would be sure to buy.

I think consoles are on the brink of a revolution if the PS3 is as good as the PSP, and I definitely think that Sony have got there act together…well I still disagree with putting multi-player games on consoles I think that ruins the experience. If you do have the money then definitely I am 100 percent behind you if you buy the PSP its a bargain in my view.

Well I don’t own a PSP so I cant talk about the long term experiences of a PSP e.g. malfunctions, glitches, overheats and warranty’s but still a great little toy. if you disagree with the PSP just because it is a “console” or a “Sony” play it first, or if you have played it and still disagree with any thing I have just wrote, write below.

 "Tom’s Hardware has a review of the Bart PE Builder software utility takes Windows XP and shrinks the OS to your USB flash drive. Besides converting your mini-drive into an emergency boot disk, you can use the utility to load a Web browser, media burning software and more – to have handy anywhere you go. And by the way, it doesn’t violate the Windows XP EULA." From the article: "If your PC has a relatively new motherboard, its BIOS will already include the functions necessary to support USB-attached boot media. If so, you need only make the right selections in that BIOS menu to boot from a USB flash drive. Older PCs, on the other hand, won’t accept USB drives as valid boot devices. This means a BIOS update that supports USB boot options is necessary. You can find information about where to obtain such updates from your PC’s (or motherboard’s) user manual, on the driver CD included with the PC (or motherboard) or on the vendor’s Website."

 I might give it a go, it seems like a great way of solving any issues on the pc very quickly!

  BartPE

Thank God for my Warranty!

Anyways called HP today and told them this would be the 5th time they would be taking in my iPaq, I wanted more then another repair which produced more problems. The technical guy transferred me over to some other department, the woman looked @ my case referenece I told her my problem she said she’d issue me with:
New iPaq from their stock, and 3 months extended warrantly.
I am so far happy with that, i hope that this doesn’t dissapoint. My iPaq was purchased last october and in that time it’d taken 4 repairs.

A few pointers from this is 1. iPaqs are not robust (i love them tho) and they cannot be self repaired generally. and 2. If you have alot of problems with yours and had it repaired alot, you have a case for a replacement!

I hope to see it by Thursday. Till then i’m going to try and back up my data and stuff. I hope the next one lasts a little longer – and i’m so going to have to extend that warranty!!

Sony will be releasing the PSP (Playstation Portable) next week on 1st of September in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Sony has also already shipped more then 5 million PSP units over the world and 2.33 million units are going to Asia and Japan and 2.74 million units going to the United States and Canada.

Source: GameIndustry

 The PSP™ (PlayStation®Portable) has a slim 6.7" x 2.9" frame that packs a powerful multimedia punch, enabling you to enjoy your favorite games, music, videos and photos instantly, anywhere. Factor in the PSP system’s brilliant high-resolution screen and cutting-edge wireless connectivity and Internet Browser – and you may just have a revolution in your hands.

Learn more about the PSP here

My latest purchase are the latest Bluetooth Headphones available for the HP iPaq model I have (rx3715). As a matter of fact they seemed to be the only Bluetooth Headphones available for my model, according to many people Bluetooth hands free kits do not work on this particular range thanks to HP’s lack of a decent audio gateway hardware/software.

The Product:

I received the product in the post yesterday (19th July 05) after purchasing it from eBay at £28.99 (+2.50p&p). That is officially the cheapest I have found it for a brand new pair. HP’s official store sells them for £49 (ex VAT) which is much more expensive when adding VAT and Delivery on (£69.32!). This is actually when the Headphones have been reduced in price from their primary price of £99 which obviously wasn’t selling them!

Product Description/spec:

• Enjoy a wireless audio connection on the go. The HP Bluetooth® stereo headphones allow you to turn your HP iPAQ Pocket PC into a wireless audio player. Listen to MP3s, video or any audio files up to 30 feet from your iPAQ Pocket PC.
• Bluetooth® Stereo Headphones
• Bluetooth® wireless technology and stereo sound give you an exceptional listening experience without wires.
• Carrying bag and charger included. AC adapter can charge both your iPAQ and headphones. Each headphone charge gives you up to 8 hours of listening.
• Volume controls, power on/off, play/pause, and track fwd/back controls are conveniently placed on the ear piece.

Overview:

 The product took me about 5 minutes to set up – Without reading the manual provided. All that was required was the insertion of a CD which had the necessary software required on the iPaq. Once this was installed all I did was charged up my Headphones and pressed the ‘Multi-Function’ button. At first nothing happened by after you hold it for 10-15 seconds it flashes red and blue which means it’s ready for pairing. On the iPaq there is a ‘High Quality Audio Setup’ choice added to the Bluetooth menu. The only mistake I made was that I didn’t add a key to the Bluetooth Pairing which made it fail. I tried again and it worked perfectly. After that I started TCPMP and selected a play list from my SD card. The headphones worked fine but I couldn’t switch tracks. I thought that it was a program error but after fiddling about I realised that the Headphones simply needed to be turned off and on again. After that it worked a charm.

The Range is okay, nothing amazing being Bluetooth and all, but the wireless factor is still there. I’m so glad I no longer have to fiddle around with annoying headphone wires whenever I want to listen to music! The Headphones only take about half an hour or so to charge which was fine, unlike the iPaq itself, the headphones are lit orange whilst charging and then the light goes out when finished (The iPaq flashes whilst charging and then stays lit when finished).

 Overall:

 This product gets a very good 85% from me, I think it was worth the £30 I spent on it, especially because it came with a nice bag to transport it as well as a charger which came with an iPaq adapter too (mine was getting a little ruined so I needed that!). I think it’s a good value for money product with some great uses and features.

Bad Points:

• The range is BT range, which isn’t really that far but far enough.
• The sound is high quality but sometimes there is a small amount of interference.
• Wireless music streaming (WiFi use) is not recommended whilst using the product. That really annoyed me because that was one of my main ideas; however it does still work pretty much as well with a bit more interference.
• The Product cannot be used on other devices then the iPaqs specified*.

 I still highly recommend this product as one of my best buys for the iPaq – especially if you use your iPaq to listen to music.

Update 26/12/05

I’m just updating this post because some people have asked about the headphone material ‘cracking’ or snapping on occasion. This is not a rumor, it has happened to me once. I was scared that it could happen because it is made out of plastic with no methods of adjustment. The only thing I can say about this is that you get a year warranty with the headphones. If they break, call up HP and they should send you a new pair like the next day – at least thats what they did for me. I suggest that you take extra care with them, and it is most certainly a design issue that may need to be considered upon purchasing the headphones. I still keep my rating the same and to be honest I’m still perfectly happy with my purchase

Update 03/06/06

I have recieved my third pair and the warranty will run out in July! (Second pair are actually still working although they weren’t when I requested for the third). Also – duct tape is a good disguse for snapped band and unfortunately HP didn’t give me a pair of any new design so the new ones are liable to breakage too!

The Core Pocket Media Player (formerly Betaplayer) is said to be the world’s most popular Open Source Media Player for the PocketPC, PalmOS and Smartphone mobile devices. It is designed to make it easy for the mobile media community to play all their digital media without restrictions.

It’s a wonderful and more robust — FREE — alternative to Windows Media Player — if you need an alternative for some reason (like your videos won’t play full-screen after your hx4700 ROM update.)

Supported file containers
– AVI (*.avi)
– Matroska (*.mkv, *.mka)
– MP4 (*.mp4, *.m4a)
– Ogg Media (*.ogg, *.ogm)
– ASF (*.asf)

Supported audio codecs
– Mpeg 1 LayerIII
– AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)
– Ogg Vorbis
– Musepack
– Windows Media Audio (on Windows Mobile devices)
– AC-3
– AMR
– Adpcm, uLaw

Supported video codecs
– DivX
– XviD
– MPEG4-SP (plus B-frame support)
– MPEG1
– M-JPEG
– Windows Media Video (on Windows Mobile devices)

A little tip — after installation, the player shows-up on your PROGRAMS menu as TCPMP (The Core Pocket Media Player) — just in case you were looking for it.

By the way, the developers welcome donations through PayPal / Pocket Matrix if you feel so lead.

The purpose of this document is to be a comprehensive timeline of the history of PDAs. Specifically, my intention is to clarify which companies premiered each of the primary front-end features that are considered standard in modern devices, as of the mid/late-1990s commoditization trend. So this is not a discussion of back-end technologies such as architectures, chips, programming interfaces, and speeds. By "premiered" I mean "first to actually include the technology in a relevant product," not necessarily the actual inventors of each technology. For example, it is almost impossible to know who invented the first miniature keyboard; similarly the invention of handwriting recognition technology goes back several decades. But we can say with near certainty which were the first handheld devices to include these technologies. It is the gathering of all these first-of-breed offerings that together created modern handhelds.

Curtosey geektimes

Read more here

Sony says it is delaying the European launch of its hotly anticipated gaming device by several months to ensure it can supply enough units for its U.S. launch.

The PSP, a sleek multimedia gadget that Sony hopes will be its first big success in consumer electronics since the PlayStation 2 five years ago, is already on sale in Japan and will hit U.S. stores on March 24.

Sony’s factories have been unable to churn out enough PSPs to launch them simultaneously across the world. The company will wait to see whether it can keep up with demand in the U.S. before setting a date for Europe.

Related Links:
News.com [ article ]