04-23-2003, 08:30 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Casio! Casio! Wherefore Art Thou Casio...?
With the announcement of the new Palm devices, and seeing their consumer-friendly hardware designs, my thoughts wander back to my favourite OEM of all time: Casio. Why Casio you might ask? It's simple: I'm a consumer, and they made a consumer-grade Pocket PC, something that no current OEM is doing.
Now I'm not talking about the slightly dubious quality of the E-200 (apologies to all you E-200 owners). I'm talking about the incredibly tough and well-designed E-125 and EM-500 Pocket PCs. Back when I did the Mobile Experience Tour in 2001, I had 60+ iPAQs, Jornadas, @migos, and Casio devices. These Pocket PCs were hauled around from city to city, unpacked, battered and bruised by thousands of people, then packed up again and shipped off to another city in the back of a huge truck. They took a beating, and what amazed me the most is the way the Casio units stood up to it. The @migos and iPAQs had the highest failure rate, the Jornadas were next, and the Casios after that. I only had one Casio fail on me, whereas the other units had 10+ failures.
Casio, unlike HP or Dell, is a consumer electronics company. They make things like keyboards and watches - technology devices that consumers don't really think of as technology. When people are using computers, they tend to be a little careful with them - because they're "high tech". Most of us would agree that the majority of Pocket PCs made today are fairly fragile. Casio designed their Pocket PCs, especially the EM-500, so be used and abused - which is exactly what a consumer wants in an electronic device they carry everywhere with them.
So that's really why I miss Casio. The fit and finish of their early Pocket PC designs just couldn't be matched, and in the same way the fit and finish of the Sony Palm OS devices can't be matched by any Pocket PC out today. The Pocket PC camp desperately needs a consumer electronics company that deeply understand this issue to bring to market a device that is consumer friendly on every level: size, construction, colour, look & feel - everything.
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04-23-2003, 08:40 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 5
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E-125 is by far the best design of a pocket pc, It may have been bulky.. but the button layout and durability has not been matched. I wish microsoft wouldn't require this ridiculous button setup to make it look less like a 'gaming' device. They shoot themselves in the foot with that requirement.
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04-23-2003, 08:47 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 63
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Preach it Man! I loved my E-125 to death. And It's just sad that the E-200 was such a flop. And yes Damn M$ and their require button layout. I mean come on guys, does the fact that people might see it and think "Handheld Game System not Pocket PC" outweigh the functionality for the consumer? Evidently, so.
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04-23-2003, 08:47 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,177
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I agree! We miss you, Casio! Please, come back! :cry:
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04-23-2003, 08:53 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 124
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Casio had the first active TFT screens - and man, they looked good. I also liked the button layout. I may not play many games on my PPC, but when I wanted to back then, I could play Turjah.  I also got stuck on side scroll wheels, which was a requirement when I bought my Toshiba e740.
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04-23-2003, 08:54 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 18
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Jason, for the very reasons you've laid out here, I made an unusual decision when it was time for me to upgrade. My current every-day Pocket PC is a Casio E-750, which is the same form factor and size as the E-125 and has a faster processor. But since it's got a MIPS processor and discussion of those devices is discouraged here, I won't talk about it further than that.
-KKC, who also owns a URThere @migo but doesn't use it much.
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04-23-2003, 08:55 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 125
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My EM-500 is still here and will continue to be here for a while
The only pocketpc I thought about buying was the 1910, but I�ll wait for a sdio capable version of this one before switching
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04-23-2003, 08:56 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by chuckers
I wish microsoft wouldn't require this ridiculous button setup to make it look less like a 'gaming' device. They shoot themselves in the foot with that requirement.
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I'm 99.999% sure that's not the case - Microsoft has no requirements for a specific button layout. AFAIK, the basic Pocket PC requirements haven't changed since Pocket PC 2000. I think the reality is that considering the smashing success of the iPAQ, every other OEM said "Ok, let's copy them" and now we have a lot of Pocket PCs that look a whole lot like iPAQs... :roll:
Anyway, I'm going to check with Microsoft on this, but I don't think you can blame them for this design trend. :lol:
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04-23-2003, 09:12 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 28
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I am sitting herein my office now looking at my Casio E750 TFT display, and my 18 inch Sylvania LCD display and the Casio far outshines the Sylvania.
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04-23-2003, 09:16 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 11
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Couldn't agree more
Have had an EM-500 for almost 2 years now. The other day I dropped it real bad getting out of my car in the parking lot and it survived without as much as a scratch. Talk about build quality! Also, I have yet to see a Pocket PC screen that looks as good as the screen on the EM-500 indoors. The color definition is so true. Apart from the low 16 MB of RAM I have never felt the need to upgrade to any of the newer ones.
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