Casio leaves the Pocket PC market in the US

[Ed Hansberry]

According to a blog <a href="http://www.writingonyourpalm.net">at Jeff Kirvin's Writing On Your Palm</a> Casio is discontinuing their E series Pocket PC in the United States. It is a shame too. Casio was so close to getting it right but just never developed that killer PDA. The E-115/125 was the ultimate in quality control, had a fantastic screen and built in Compact Flash but was simply too large to be considered pocketable by most people. The E-200 got the StrongARM processor and added Secure Digital to the package, but was plagued with quality control problems and its style was... uhm... unique. As a result, Casio has recently been lumped in the "other" category of most market share reports as its market share declined below numbers most industry watchers cared about.<br /><br />Instead they are going to continue to push their BE series devices here, which run Windows CE but not Pocket PC, which is a strategy I just don't get. I have been a fan of Casio's pre-E200 quality and am a happy owner of the EM-500, a beautifully put together device. Again though, the 16MB limit and no Compact Flash expansion possibilities really limited its usefulness. Casio has just never been able to put all of the pieces together. They insisted on going their own way with the Casio Zoomer <a href="http://www.peanutpress.com/book.cgi/0471223395">abandoning their partnership with Jeff Hawkins</a> rather than make the sleek Palm Pilot.<br /><br />Casio will continue to sell some sort of Pocket PC in Japan. Source: Foo Fighter

[Barak]

As I've stated on other boards: No tears shed here. I own an E-125 and an E-200 and reading the horror stories people have gone through with the E-200 has been depressing.

Casio's Questionable advertising - promising the world and providing nothing (see Pc Sleeve and USB adapter) and horrendous customer support sunk the ship. Casio customer service has become an oxymoron.

It's probably a good move on Casio's part, as more and more people were stating: "Casio will get no more money from me".

I'm happy with my E-200 as the backlight hasn't stopped working yet :wink:

I'm waiting for the next generation of X-scale and then goodbye E-200.

Just my .02

[jdhill]

If true, this is a sad but not unexpected day.

I've owned a Casio E-10, E-100, E-115 and E-200. Like many other people, I was impressed with the E-1xx series. The HAST screen is a thing of beauty indoors. The build quality was fantastic. They were bricks in the styling department, but they were great devices otherwise.

However, Casio began to lose ground rapidly with the E-115/E-125. Compaq was using the faster StrongARM while Casio clung to the slower MIPS processor. The iPaq screen could be viewed outdoors. The Casio screen was still the best indoors but totally useless outdoors.

Then came the E-200. The dual expansion was nice. The USB host was nice (but few drivers were ever made available for it). The styling was ho-hum to bad (what's up with the purple?). The speaker was a joke. But most importantly, the quality took a nose dive. The general build quality was mediocre. The backlight burnout problem was a catastrophe. Battery life dropped to unacceptably low levels. Accessories were almost impossible to find (I had the USB/Serial adapter on back-order for over 4 months before I finally cancelled the order).

Casio, you shot yourself in the foot. You have nobody to blame but yourself. You had the lead with the E-100/E-105. You lost it because you rested on your laurels.

Cassiopeia Windows CE/Pocket PC USA (born late '90s - Died 2002) Rest in Peace.

[RickP in AZ]

Perhaps I should have listed it more clearly as a rumor being that the only source so far is the blurb on http://www.pocketcity.org. Who knows, truly, until there is an official announcement from Casio themselves.

It is unfortunate because the pre-e200 units were, just as Ed said, of the highest construction quality. If only Casio could have regained that perfection of build with a slimmer, lighter form factor yet still provide us with advancements in technology like a transflective screen they certainly could have gained mindshare and marketshare.

I for one am an iPAQ 3630 owner and even with the beautiful new screen of the 39xx I will not buy one. I have decided that I *must* have a scroll wheel and integrated CF. I may no longer be able to use my Stowaway, my Vaja, or many other accessories but it is what fits in my pocket that counts.

Unfortunately the Perfect PocketPC is still an elusive dream...
:cry:
Richard Padgett (aka RickP in AZ)

[Will T Smith]

Ditch the native PIM software.

Instead, bundle either Pocket Informant or Agenda Fusion. These two applications have demonstrated their ability to draw PAYING customers to replace already competent functional built in apps. Their is no need to re-invent that wheel.

In advanced models, implement FIREWIRE!!!!!

[dreampages]

Must be why we can't get any more accessories.

Larry

[Dave Conger]

It would be a shame to have Casio leave the PPC market. I have been a fan of the idea behind the BE-300 and since most Pocket PC's tend to start retailing at $399, CE based devices like the BE-300 could definatly fill in the low end to compete with Palm. We can only hope that Casio has something interesting planned because otherwise I fear they won't do very well.

Rumor is that the BE-500 will be brought to the US.

[Teddy]

if this is true it's a real pity...I love my EM505 (with 32 ram :P) and I think it's an excellent device with the well known drawbacks, but I didn't like the E200 a bit, when I played with one at a store, it felt...cheap...Casio have missed the chance to get on board, and with the LOOX and some future PPC's like Hitachi's one round the corner...

[Timothy Rapson]

Now, I have to wonder who was making the Casios? I kinda think Casio is big enough (as are Sharp and Sony) that they don't farm out the work, but who knows. Maybe if Dell picked up some of their suppliers they could put out a Casio-like model.

Not really germane, to the news though.

I liked the dual slotted designs of Toshiba, Jornada (with reasonably small sleeve unlike Compaq), Nec, and Casio. They are gone now except for the Toshiba E740 and the soon to arrive G550. Unfortunately, the only viable models left are the Toshibas.

Don't know how Casio could have slipped up so badly from their huge lead with the 100. I remember really wanting one of them, if only they had run something better than CE. I could barely look one over at a Best Buy without CE locking them up. When PPC 2000 came out I was very close to buying a Casio, but the screen that was so nice indoors was unusable outside and I use my PDA a LOT outside. And Compaq could work outside and had the better processor.

What good could come of this? The BE-300, Toshiba E310 and any Clie model are the three best values in the PDA world today. If the BE-300 had a reflective or transflective screen I might buy a one for each member of my family. Maybe if Casio can concentrate just on them they can.......well, by the time that was ready Sony may have OS5 color Clies with all the current features, full multimedia, and all the wonderful WordSmith for nearly the same price. I expect Casio is losing $50 on every BE-300 they sell right now. They are unlikely to keep that up as they are now deciding not to keep throwing good money after bad in the full-featured PPC market.

Back to cam-corders, wristwatches, and TVs for Casio, I guess.

If that is what is left to Casio, what is left of the PDA world?

Toshiba (coming on strong at both ends of the market)

Sony, (coming on strong at both ends of the market)

Compaq (very vulnerable due to very poor quality, having blown a huge opportunity with the best design from PPC 2000. They still have lots of money and momentum, but if they release junky models to sell against Pam OS5 models from Sony and Palm this Christmas, they are going to loose a lot of money when they have to replace all of them with working models )

Palm (weak at both ends but strong in the $200-300 range. They have the opposite problem of Compaq. Their models have generally been durable, but they make so little off each one in this poor market they are in trouble. They need a complete homerun with the OSLO or they won't have enough money to stay afloat)

Finally, Sharp, Handspring, NEC, and all the rest are complete wild cards. I would love to see Sharp merge the best of the PPC and Palm OS worlds, and they are showing some models with real WOW, but can they get enough market to get a really nice software/accessory base? How do all these tiny PPC companies upstarts keep popping up? The Alaska, LOOX, Mitac, Acer, Packard Bell....how many are there now? If Casio could not make it, how will they?

Sharp, Sony, HP, Toshiba, and Palm go battle royal this Christmas. By then there will probably not be a single model left (except the Toshibas) that is on the shelves now. We won't have clear winners until January reports. I expect to see Sony one top.

Too bad, there won't be a Casio anywhere in sight.

[JJ]

It’s really too bad that Casio is leaving the US Pocket PC market behind. I love my Cassiopeia E-125 and that's why I haven't upgraded yet. When Microsoft decided to abandon MIPS processors for its Pocket PC 2002, it felt as if though I was abandoned by a close relative, but now I feel like an orphan. :(

[Dave Beauvais]

First let me say that I like my E-200. I really do. But when it does eventually break, I plan to make use of my CompUSA carry-in replacement warranty and get whatever is comparable at the time. At least with the E-200 I won't have to replace so many accessories when I go to a different Pocket PC. Why? Because as a previous poster mentioned, accessories for this thing are damn-near impossible to buy. The only thing E-200-specific I have is my E&B Cases E-200 Slipper.

I love the fact that the E-200 has both CF and SD slots built-in, the screen is nice, and overall, I like the button layout. But then there's the sidelight... Oh, where to begin about the sidelight... This is my fourth E-200. The first suffered from random self-hard resets and memory corruption. The second had a defective digitizer and several specs of dust inside the display. The third was good until the sidelight burned out.

My current one was perfect for about two months, but gradually developed the infuriating habit of randomly not turning the sidelight on in low light conditions! Sometimes it'll come on if I turn the unit off and right back on, but most times it requires a soft reset. The freaky thing is that if I shine a flashlight on it, the sidelight will always come on. We (a few E-200 users with the same problem) can't figure out if there's some reversed light sensor or what, but it's really strange.

It's just so irritating that when I need the light, it doesn't come on and I have to fumble around in the dark with the stylus to press the reset button. I've thought about calling Casio up and getting a fifth E-200, but I have no reason to believe it would be any better. I mean, come on... there's been at least one problem with each and every E-200 I've had to this point. The current one is by far the best, however, and when the sidelight is on, I have no deal-breaking problems with it.

I will probably use this E-200 until it either craps out or the sidelight problem ticks me off so much that I can't take it anymore. After that, I'll see what's out there. If I had to buy now, I'd probably get the Toshiba e740 or maybe an iPAQ 3900 with CF sleeve.

--Dave

[johncruise]

Can't say about that article except that until now, it is still a RUMOR. No announcement yet from Casio and the fact that they just released Update File v1.30R and have introduced it to the Philippines market, they are still supporting the E-200 series. Whether US owners will be left behind... that we don't know. Still waiting for Casio US announcement.

Am a proud owner of E-11, E-100, E-115, and now an E-200.

[Bob Anderson]

Well, there was a time when I would have felt this was devastating news. Like when I owned the Philips Nino 500 and then got word that they were cancelling Ninos on Win CE.

But in retrospect, this type of "coming and going" is actually pretty healthy. I thought Philips had dealt Microsoft a blow when they left, and little did I know that Compaq was developing the first iPaq!

The market has a way of rewarding/punishing as appropriate. Given Casio's overall performance when compared to the competitors, I'm not certain they will be truly missed. Since there are so many manufacturers coming out with PocketPC PDA's, it's my guess that we'll see better and better products as time goes on!

If the rumors turn out to be wrong, well, then I hope for the sake of Casio's future business plans that they take this opportunity to see/read/learn from their customer's posts, whereby nearly all of them are pointing out weak spots... and that they leverage that knowledge to build a solid, "killer" PDA that we just can't resist. Otherwise, CASIO Pocket PCs R.I.P.

[Gerard]

Well, I am still happy with my EG-800. With 46MB of memory onboard and lots of other memory options, and a nice little camera to plug in, it serves me well each day. It is no longer may main computer as it was for well over a year (had 5 altogether, before I got a non-defective one!), the iPAQ 3835 having taken over the role of my torturer. Last night the iPAQ had its 5th spontaneous hard reset. I lost a day worth of new data, a real piss-off. Compaq/HP better release that ROM update soon...
Anyway, the Casio is where I go for anything needing a screen that displays accurate colours and contrasts. If I had only the iPAQ, I'd have to go to using graphics programs on my PC, and I hate my PC. I have Adobe Illustrator and a few other graphics programs on the PC, but the Casio coupled with Photogenics and Pocket Artist allow me to do almost any graphics task I want (except authoring Flash, and the final processing of animated GIF files, which I do in Ulead on the PC). The iPAQ screen, and those of all the other newer PPCs for that matter just leave me cold. Terrible image display except in bright sunlight, a heavy red-bias, extremely weak contrast (making a lot of websites hard to read, when two similar colours are used for background and text), these make for some funny results when I do original work or retouching on the iPAQ and later look at it on the Casio or a PC.
I understand that Casio had a hard time getting things right, but withdrawing seems a weak decision. I mean, what happened? Did corporate HQ just decide that the production/engineering staff were too inept ever to improve their work? That's depressing! Or were they simply too lazy as a company to get off the pot and fix things? The flaws in the EG-800 were rampant, though the concept was excellent. As water resistant package it was a joke all along, with the funny seals on CF slot, jack inputs, and serial port all popping off because of distortion after weeks (or months, depending on user activity). The buzz while on battery power made recording horrible. Quality control was a joke. But the batteries are amazing! The screen is just soooooo beautiful! The cursorpad the best in the history of such devices, making gaming really fun. And hey, as bricks go, this big blue honey with its rounded contours is just too sweet! And then there's the extra 14MB of flash memory onboard, allowing for tons of free memory even with over 70 programs installed before a CF card even enters the picture. That means I have most of my software accessible whether using the modem or the camera, making for minimal frustration of not having the right CF card in the slot.
A long rave, sorry, but I just think Casio is being foolish to withdraw. The iPAQ has so many problems, and so many other devices have their own troubles as well (look at the debacle over releasing the LOOX, or the ever-shifting status of Jornada production, or the Acer.... I mean come on, an Acer???). Casio must have had some other reason besides just quality control of US-aimed devices. English is a mess as languages go, but surely it's no harder to use in a PPC than Japanese!

[Kre]

This doesnt surprise me. Besides, the name Casio doesnt exactly make most people think of high end electronics. Casio makes most people think of watches and cheaper electronic devices. I mean, I like Casio myself, but Casio doesnt have the same name power like Sony does. And that can be a real problem when trying to push higher end devices.

They wont go anywhere with their BE devices. All thats going to do is confuse people. And consumers arent going to want some watered down version of pocket pc, which is how theyre going to view BE devices. Consumers want the whole enchilada... the pocket pc as its meant to be.

Bye Casio. `Twas nice knowin ya.

[Robotbeat]

Crap.

This sucks. Casio's XScale was going to be my next Pocket PC.

Oh well. All good things must come to an end. I like my e115 and its exceptional quality. I love the backup battery. It's cheap and I can find it at any Walmart or Target. I also am in love with the buttons. Why iPAQ-crap for buttons on everything? I also love the amazingly sharp and colorful screen of the pre-StrongARM color Cassiopeias...

I will miss Casio... Maybe I'll email them and say how sad I am to see them and their USB-host capabilities go silently in the night.

[Ed Hansberry]

Maybe I'll email them and say how sad I am to see them and their USB-host capabilities go silently in the night.
That and their PC Card sleeve never seemed to materialize. :? I've yet to see a USB host driver.

[ChrisD]

I'm shocked. I think that Casio was one of the leaders in terms of creating quality Pocket PCs. I know they had a rocky start with the E-200 however they have been working hard to fix the problems they came across. Alslo, FYI, Casio is based in New Jersey so I don't know where Casio in Texas came from.

BTW, the BE-300 DOES have a type II CompactFlash slot for peripherals and storage cards.

[ChrisD]

Maybe I'll email them and say how sad I am to see them and their USB-host capabilities go silently in the night.
That and their PC Card sleeve never seemed to materialize. :? I've yet to see a USB host driver.

Their PC Card sleeve did ship in June. See http://www.mobileplanet.com/product.asp?dept%5Fid=3709&pf%5Fid=MP970127&listing=1

[jdhill]

That and their PC Card sleeve never seemed to materialize.
A friend of mine got a PC Card Sleeve last week. Sadly, he's using it mainly for the extra battery!

[buffasnow]

:? Casio should learn from others. They initially produced an excellent, albeit bulky product with the early E-1XX models. Customers remained loyal in spite of the poor customer service provided by Casio. People become less tolerant when they have a product of questionable quality and they receive poor customer service.

Maybe Casio should try the approach being used by Sears to purchase Lands' End- acquire a company known for excellent customer service, learn from it, and build on it.

What a shame.

[johncruise]

That and their PC Card sleeve never seemed to materialize. :?
I received my PC Card unit about a month ago. (last June). Its still working flawlessly. Hadn't gave me any problems at all.

I've yet to see a USB host driver.
There were a floppy/superdisk driver lurking around the net. Of course there were the mouse (who cares) and keyboard driver built in. Besides... that would be Toshiba's problem too right? I bet a year from now that other PPC will follow the USB host lead by Casio and Toshiba. You can all quote me on this one.

[Ed Hansberry]

That and their PC Card sleeve never seemed to materialize. :?
I received my PC Card unit about a month ago. (last June). Its still working flawlessly. Hadn't gave me any problems at all.
Cool. I actually didn't research the PC card sleeve - I had heard rumblings in the newsgroups that they were sparse. I knew they had shipped, but I thought it was such low quantities due to the complaints about getting them.

[Shapeshifter]

Let me start this post with a long
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
*cough*
Casio is my favourite PocketPC hardware developer. I have an E115 (named Banshee :D) and I've never had any problems with it (that weren't caused by iBrowser, grrr). It's the thing in my Pocket, it's a mobile workstation, it's a MP3 player, it's a library and the device I am not supposed to use in class (except for physics).
With Casio gone, who would be left on the market anyway? Fujitsu-Siemens, Toshiba and Compaq-HP. Three players in the game.
Fujitsu-Siemens got the LOOX coming out, which seems like a great device, especially for being their first.
Toshiba got some experience from their former models, and their new e740 seems awsome.
HP merged with Compaq, two worlds collided. Quality meets, well, not so good quality. The result has yet to be seen, for I'm sure the 39xx series was already in development before the merge.
Goodnight you princes of Maine, you Kings of New England.

[Mark Johnson]

Perhaps they are going Sharp's route: Stay in the PDA game but avoid paying MS for the OS. The introduction of the BE series might have been a step in that direction, with a pending new generation to use Linux instead of PPC or even CE.

[jdhill]

Perhaps they are going Sharp's route: Stay in the PDA game but avoid paying MS for the OS. The introduction of the BE series might have been a step in that direction, with a pending new generation to use Linux instead of PPC or even CE.
I seriously doubt that a Casio PDA based on Linux would be any more successful. Neither the Agenda (R.I.P.) nor the Zaurus have any share of the market that registers outside of the "all other" category.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Definitely a sad rumor. I didn't follow the E200 very carefully but I do still have an EM500 that now collects dust in favor of my current iPaq3835.

My iPaq3835 can do so many things with the extra expansion options not inherent with the EM500, but when it comes to stability and quality, my EM500 was picture-perfect. It was as rock-solid of a device as I've ever owned. Ultimately, 16MB of RAM was just too crippling...

If Casio were ever to re-release their E-125 (solid PPC with CF expansion) with a StrongARM and upgraded OS, I'd the first to revert back and buy it (brick shape and all).

ekkie

[johncruise]

Cool. I actually didn't research the PC card sleeve - I had heard rumblings in the newsgroups that they were sparse. I knew they had shipped, but I thought it was such low quantities due to the complaints about getting them.
Well, the complaints are mostly from people who were waiting for it to be released either to an online store or a retail store. But for those who pre-ordered -- dreampages, mobile planet, cdw, etc -- I think most of (if not all) got their units already. Can you confirm Larry?

[Foo Fighter]

On some level, I am happy to see them go. Casio gave PocketPC a bad name in terms of bulky designs and poor battery life. The E-series only fueled Palm zealots with proof that PPCs are "bricks" that suck power. Ironically, they were the company that pioneered multimedia on handhelds.
Casio never seemed to grasp how to design a form factor that consumers really desired. Hopefully, their failure will give future hardware manufacturers a blueprint of how not to design and market a PocketPC.

[RickP in AZ]

If we're lucky the LOOX will prove to be what the e200 wanted to be. But my fingers are getting cramped from being crossed for so long.

I hate to mention it but why can Palm seem to keep the hardware solid and reliable while the PPC manufacturers have such trouble? My IIIx was durable as heck, and worked just as well on Friday when I gave it to my brother as the day I first started it 4 years ago. Meanwhile my iPAQ 3630 creaks and groans, has fleck of dust under its sealed screen, needed a new touch screen at only the 1 year mark, and now the meager 950Mah battery is slowly dying and needs to be replaced. (Of course despite popular myth, it was my Palm which gave me *3* spontaneous *Hard Resets* just on power on. The only hard reset my iPAQ has had was an elective on in order to upgrade to PPC 2k2.)

RickP in AZ

[Jason Dunn]

Casio gave PocketPC a bad name in terms of bulky designs and poor battery life

Bulky design, yes, but battery life? No way! The E-125 with the backlight on low would last for 11.2 hours while the iPAQ 3650 tanks after 7.7. There are many things to criticize Casio for, but battery life is not one of them.

PS - You should know better by now...it's "Pocket PC" with a space. :wink:

[Foo Fighter]

Bulky design, yes, but battery life? No way! The E-125 with the backlight on low would last for 11.2 hours while the iPAQ 3650 tanks after 7.7. There are many things to criticize Casio for, but battery life is not one of them.

Yes, but if you had the backlight on medium or above..and played with the multimedia functions a lot...battery life was far less than 11 hours. And that's where the bad reputation came from, no matter how undeserving that may be. One quality I've always liked about the Casio's (aside from the drop-dead gorgeous display) was the that fact that they had user replaceable batteries. You don't find that on many color PDAs today.

PS - You should know better by now...it's "Pocket PC" with a space. :wink:

Ha! I can't seem to stop myself from spelling it as one word. :P

[Gerard]

"Yes, but if you had the backlight on medium or above..and played with the multimedia functions a lot...battery life was far less than 11 hours."

Yeah, right. That's like saying 'yeah, sure, but drive that compact car up a mountain with a full load of cement bags...' It ain't an argument, it's barely relevant. The iPAQ display is incapable of going dim enough for most indoor use! Sure, I can kill the backlight on my 3835, but then it's very hard to see indoors! The Casio line (apart from the idiotic E-200) offered a wide range of brightness/contrast options, and by juggling these we can minimize eye-strain and maximize battery life. The iPAQ can't offer anywhere near that flexibility, in terms of normal indoor use (c'mon, how much computing do you do out in the sun? And what a waste of good daylight if you do!), and so this statement of Casio efficiency stands. In my opinion.

[Take1]

I'm in the mixed feelings bag about Casio. I remember having the Nino 500 (75 MHz, CE 2.1) and, after Phillips total abandonment, went to the Casio E-100. Wow! Best screen in the world, fastest speed, and it looked cool (compared to the other Palm-sized PCs of the time). It was a brick, but it was a brick in a crowd of other bricks (Compaq color Aeros, The purple Jornada brick). Thought Casio was going to rule the CE roost for a long, long, time. NOT.

Bought the iPAQ in 2000, marvelling at how THIN it was compared to the E-100 brick I had -- figured Casio would top Compaq soon and waited..... and waited... and waited.... Nothing. Just more bricks and nothing indicating they were going to put the Cassiopeia on a diet. Bought the 3835 after seeing the E-200 brick with it's tiny reflective screen.

Why did Casio keep making HUGE PDAs? That's the #1 reason they failed -- thin is in now. Everyone else figured this out, how come Casio didn't?!

[Reluctant Luddite]

The E-series only fueled Palm zealots with proof that PPCs are "bricks" that suck power. Ironically, they were the company that pioneered multimedia on handhelds.

Casio never seemed to grasp how to design a form factor that consumers really desired. Hopefully, their failure will give future hardware manufacturers a blueprint of how not to design and market a PocketPC.

Okay, you got me out of lurker mode with that one. :D

The E-125 is the first, and possibly the last PDA I'll own. I picked it up late last year, after it had been discontinued and the Pocket PC 2002 models were already out.

Sure, my Palm friends pounced on the fact that it was a brick--but after I showed them Pocket Divx and Yame on the "drop-dead gorgeous display" , they admitted that it had interesting possibilities.

IMHO, Casio made a great design decision on the E1xx series and EM-500 by clearly placing the d-pad on the left side, rather than pointlessly in the middle. I'm of the Nintendo generation--I'm not comfortable with buttons on the left of the d-pad :D

If anything, Casio lost the most when Microsoft set hardware standards for the PPC 2002 models. You may not have liked their design choices, but I feel the HAST screen + control layout would have continued to differentiate them in a bland market, or at least retained fans of the older models. To their credit, they continued to try to innovate (USB port) but it just didn't work out.

Cheers!

P.S. While doing research on Casio's website (double-checking that USB port thing :wink:) I found out they're selling the E-125 online again. Weird. Looks like they probably are exiting the market and want to clear out all inventory.

[Jonathon Watkins]

I'm in two minds about this rumour. I was going to get an E200 as my first PPC (can I have it as one word if it’s abbreviated Jason? :wink: ). However after seeing the reviews and playing with it I decided to wait for the next generation. I have my LOOX on order and am looking forward to using it. However if FS don’t get their finger out in releasing it soon I may decide to wait for the next, next generation of PPC’s. :puppydogeyes:

( I heard about the possible new IPAQ with 480x320 screen, but what other rumours are there of next generation PPC devices?)

[Jason Dunn]

If anything, Casio lost the most when Microsoft set hardware standards for the PPC 2002 models. You may not have liked their design choices, but I feel the HAST screen + control layout would have continued to differentiate them in a bland market, or at least retained fans of the older models. To their credit, they continued to try to innovate (USB port) but it just didn't work out.

Nice to see Lurkers coming out to play. ;-)

To the best of my knowledge. the reflective screen wasn't part of the hardware spec from Microsoft. Why did everyone do it? Simple: the iPAQ was selling like hot cakes, and every journalist that reviewed one mentioned how great it was to see the screen outdoors. Monkey see, monkey do. Casio, and everyone else, tried to emulate the success of the iPAQ as much as possible, and we ended up with some pretty bland PDAs. I love that bright Casio screen - nothing beats it for multimedia.

[Foo Fighter]

I love that bright Casio screen - nothing beats it for multimedia.

Everyone that has seen the new iPaq 39xx seems to think it is as good or better. Haven't seen it myself personally (almost purchased one) but I'm dying for a look. I really hope more PPC manufacturers move to Transflective LCDs.

Off-Topic: Are there any more new Pocket PCs (there, Jason. I spelled it correctly this time!) coming down the pipe?

[Jonathon Watkins]

Everyone that has seen the new iPaq 39xx seems to think it is as good or better. Haven't seen it myself personallSame here -I have been looking out for one but no-one around here seems to have one in stock. I guess I'll just have to take a trip into London at some point to check one out.