[stevenmh]

I've had the 720 for about a year and a half and love it. I've considered upgrading to the 560, but for now I think I'll stick with what I have.

Nice review, though. I'll throw out some thoughts of my own on various points:

As far as missing features, I agree on the CF slot and the camera. I've never used those anyway. The lack of jog dial hurts, though. I use Audible Player a lot, and the program automatically recognizes and uses the jog dial in/out for play/stop and up/down for volume adjustment. Windows Media Player can also be set up to work this way using the button mapping feature of WMP. This works extremely well, as you can have the PPC in a case clipped to your belt with headphones on and control the audio book / music with the exposed jog dial. With the 560, you could always map the side button to pause/play with WMP, but the Audible software does not offer any button mapping options, it just used the jog dial automatically. I do not see any registry entries that could be adjusted to achieve this, although I suppose it wouldn't be difficult for Audible to add the functionality if enough requests are made. In the meantime, when you're listening to an audio book and someone wants to say something to you, you have to unclip the 560 from your belt, unplug the headphones, open the case, and hit the stop button, then do all that in reverse to resume playing. Not cool, and as much as I use Audible Player, it's a big deal.

The other missing feature which the review doesn't discuss is the ability to sync with AS via wi-fi. While technically it's not a feature for which FSC is responsible, the fact is that the 560 uses WM5, WM5 *requires* AS 4.x, and AS 4.x cannot sync via wi-fi. I took my cradle to work the day after I got my 720, and my syncing at home takes place over my wireless network. Some would say no big deal, use a cable, but my PC is in the basement, and I do a sync every morning before leaving for work. I simply refuse to perform an "upgrade" which breaks something which currently works, and so WM5 continues to be a deal breaker for me, on ANY device, until MS fixes AS.

Battery life: the FSC-claimed battery life of 12 hrs for the 720 is a joke. I use XCPU Scalar to run my unit at 624 MHz Mon-Fri, but since I usually don't recharge over the weekend, I will lower the clock to 104 MHz when listening to an audio book. I also have Audible Player set to blank the screen when playing. With a blank screen, running at 104MHz, listening to audio over headphones, I get about 5 hrs out of a freshly charged battery. At 624MHz, full screen brightness and wi-fi or BT, I'd expect about half that. I have two batteries and get the same performance out of both, and this has been consistent over 18 months of ownership. It sounds like the 560 has a reasonable battery life compared to the 720.

I use Sprite Backup to do an auto backup every morning at 5:30. Yes, I've seen it hiccup and stop doing backups and not give an error. This is very rare, and I've been able to isolate the problem in some cases to another app (one that clears appointments from the database to fix the alarm issue). However, I use the Sprite Monitor feature to put a single line at the top of my Today screen showing the last backup time. With a glance each morning, I can always tell if Sprite has decided to stop doing backups, and go in and reschedule them. I have restored my 720 several times, and an iPAQ h2215 before my 720, and have never experienced a failed restore due to a corrupt image.

On the other hand, I can see the advantages of ROM storage. I think ROM storage + auto backup would make for a very reliable device. I suppose the RAM vs ROM performance issue depends on how well a particular device handles it, how an individual uses their device, and what apps they use. It sounds like the 560 does a reasonable job.

I have a BT GPS, and can agree that having it integrated into the device would make it much more useable. I don't carry my GPS around on my person at all times as I do my Pocket PC, so it's only useful on pre-planned road trips. If I'm in the car with someone else and they get lost, my map software doesn't do me any good.

One thing not mentioned in the review... is the IR the low-level variety or the consumer grade? While I don't use it that often, I do have remote control software on my 720, and tested its C-IR range to about 35 feet with my TV.

In the end, I wouldn't use the GPS as much as wi-fi sync and the jog dial. 802.11g, smaller and lighter, and backlit buttons are excellent touches, but not enough to convince me to upgrade from the 720. And finally, since I live in the US, ordering an FSC device is a bit of a gamble. I spent almost $700 on my 720 by the time I paid overseas shipping, and was painfully aware that FSC has no US presence, and therefore I was buying a $700 device with no warranty. I had a 30 day window to return to the vendor, which would have entailed another round of overseas shipping, but no course of action except the garbage can if the unit had died after 6 months. It's still running fine after 18 months, but I would only recommend it to fellow die-hard gadget freaks. When my coworker wanted advice on a PPC for business use, I pointed him to the Axim x50v with similar features and offered by a US company with US shipping costs and a US warranty. I knew that he would value convenient customer service over cutting edge features should a problem arise.