06-18-2003, 05:00 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 167
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Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for iPAQ Pocket PCs Reviewed
Power. More power. It's not as though we don't have enough, however, even a little bit more would be great. Who among us wouldn't want more power? Well, the Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for the iPAQ PocketPC from Nexian may be your saving grace. I took a look at the sleeve from Nexian. However, I'll warn you up front, this review isn't long, since what the product does is mostly behind the scenes. Is the product worth the $149.99 they're asking, or would you do better with another solution?
Nexian really was on my radar when I thought of a way to extend the battery life of my iPAQ 3850 and get a dual CF-sleeve. The Nexipak never came up as an option until I saw the product for sale at my local CompUSA store with rebates totalling $70, making the whole unit half the price. It isn't much to look at, but what it doesn't have in looks, it makes up for in brawn and staying power. I only wish their customer support process left me as warm and fuzzy as using the Nexipak.
Figure 1: What the Nexipak package looks like
The contents of the package are:
- 1 Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for iPAQ PocketPC
- Warranty leaflet
Some of the features listed on their Web site about this product are:
- Detachable, rechargeable Li-ion battery usable up to 12 hours
- Provides 2X Power to the iPAQ and CF Module
- NexiPak keeps on supplying power even when the iPAQ primary power source is drained
- Charge NexiPak with iPAQ's power adapter or with Nexian's optional travel or cigarette chargers
Does this seem a little sparse to you? It did to me. I thought, what about a charger plug? What about an adapter to charge the product apart from my iPAQ? What about a carrying case? See, the thing is, you don't get any of that. The first thing I did was, of course, take it out of the annoyingly sealed packaging (who came up with this type of packaging? You all know the kind, you don't want to cut it because what if you have to return it, but if you don't cut it you can't get the product out of the packaging? Then, you "just" cut the top or side of the packaging and then cut your fingers trying to pry it apart, ugh), and then just looked at it.
Nothing major, it's simple, black, has two dual CF slots and a detachable battery. It's a non-descript dual CF sleeve. So, of course, I slid it onto my iPAQ. Immediately, the iPAQ played that cool "insertion" sound. I navigated to the Settings > System > Expansion Pack applet and saw the following:
Figure 2: What the Nexipak looks like to the iPAQ
Ok, so far so good, nothing major going on. Of course, you have to have the intial first charge of the Nexipak, there was no documentation for the Nexipak telling me how long the initial charge should be, or if there should be one, nothing I could find on their Web site told me either. So, I had to email their tech support (this would be, as it turned out, the first of many emails to tech support). They told me the next day that the unit should be left in the cradle overnight to fully charge. Opening the Power applet on the iPAQ shows the following progress:
Figure 3: The Nexipak while charging
So, the next day I come back, and lo and behold the little light on the back of the Nexipak is a solid color, the External battery meter reads 100%, and all seems right with the world. Funny thing is, the minute I took the iPAQ out of the cradle, the power meter dropped to "just under" 100%. Now, I thought that the Nexipak was supposed to trickle a charge to the main iPAQ battery only after the main battery started to drain. The strange thing is I was never able to get the power meter to read 100%.
I ended up returning the initial Nexipak to Nexian in what was a very tortuous process of miscommunication between their shipping department and myself (they recorded the wrong address, even though I had indicated it on my RMA letter to them, then instead of re-routing it to my correct work address, delivery was attemped to my home address, then returned back to UPS, then finally after almost five emails to Nexian, the product was sent to my correct work address I'd asked the replacement unit to be sent to originally.
This was not, however, a problem with Nexian's Customer Support. It was a problem of their shipping department. Their Customer Support department was better, they answered my email questions promptly, issued me an RMA, but only answered my direct question as to whether they replace or repair the "defective" extended battery, in case you're wondering, it's up to them what they do).
I don't actually know what the company did because according to the serial number I recorded before returning the Nexipak to Nexian, the Nexipak was the same one I sent for repair. Matter of fact, the "refurbished" Nexipak had a crack in the replacement (refurbished?) battery. I know the original external battery didn't have a crack, it may not have held a charge, but at least it wasn't cracked. The replacement battery had both a crack and white scratches on it.
Instead of going through the painful return process again, I let well enough alone at this point and decided to just use the Nexipak as is.
But... How does it perform?
So, these are my unscientific results for what my usage time was for the Nexipak:
- Nexipak installed, with a IBM 1Gigabyte Microdrive in CF slot one
- While working at full brightness, I sat listening to music that had been copied to the Microdrive
- I was able to listen to all 150 songs
By the time the 150 songs all played, I had about (what looked like) 50% battery life left. Now those are some impressive results.
Gotchas
Of course, with any product, there are gotchas.
- This product needs better documentation. Companies have got to start realizing that writing documentation that makes the product sound like it won't have any problems makes it a bit of a problem when you do have a question
- Why doesn't the battery meter ever stay at 100%? The final answer after countless emails (after I received my cracked replacement battery from Nexian) to Nexian was: "Please keep in mind that the percentage is reported by the OS, and is an estimated guess. From our experience this estimation can be off by 20% its actual strength." If this is the case, why do they even allow you to see the battery meter via the Power applet? There's nothing in the documentation that states this, there's nothing in the leaflet manual you get with the product, nothing states that the reading for the backup battery can be off by as much as 20%. That seems to be a big margin of error to me. You'd think somewhere on their Web site or in their documentation they'd let users know this
- I had a really weird issue with the iPAQ completley screwing up the screen when I inserted a Linksys Wireless WCF12 card in slot two and my IBM Microdrive in slot one. I also had a problem if slot two was the only slot being used rather than slot one. Each time I tried to put my Microdrive in slot two, my iPAQ did NOT recognize the CF drive as being inserted. This was far from scientific, but I could repeat these results each time I did this
- If you want straight answers as to what Nexian does with replacements/repairs, and I don't know if anyone else has had bad experiences with their replacements, let me know, but mine was so bad that even though I received a damaged relpacement battery to replace a malfunctioning original one, I chose to let it go, because it just wasn't worth the effort to go through that painful process again
Otherwise, the product itself performed brilliantly. Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Would I recommend it for the MSRP of $149.99? No. Wait for a sale at your local CompUSA, they're sure to have other such sales and when they do, grab one of these as soon as you can.
Where to buy
This product can be purchased directly from Mobile Planet for $119.95. [Affiliate]
Specifications
Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for iPAQ PocketPC:
- Size: 3.4" W x 5.2" L x 1.6" T
- Dual CompactFlash (Type II)
- Li-ion 1550mAH
- Detachable Battery (although I found that if you detach the battery, your Dual CF pack is immediately shut down)
- LED Charging Indicator
Conclusion
Buy one but don't buy one directly from Nexian. Get one for less than the MSRP $149.99. Don't rely on the power meter level to tell you how much power you really have left. But get one if you find that you're running out of power while using your iPAQ but still want the added bonus of using a dual CF slot. The Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for the iPAQ PocketPC is a good product. It would have been better if their shipping department didn't cause such a nightmare and then Nexian decided to replace the faulty original battery with a cracked and scarred replacement one. A disclosure about the battery meter reading being off by as much as 20% would also have gone a long way, in my book. To me, it would have made the company seem as though it wasn't trying to hide something about actual versus claimed performance. Don't get me wrong, the performance lives up to the claims, just the claims should be a lot more forthright.
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06-18-2003, 05:28 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 17
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Nexipak review
I bought a Nexipak a couple of years ago. It worked just fine. However, the battery release button would get snagged each time I took it out of my case. The button isn't very strong and sticks out about an 1/8 of an inch; just enough so that the unit doesn't lay flat and snag on different things. The button finally broke off one day, but I was able to hold it together for a while with some electrical tape. It's unfortunate that they couldn't design a better way of getting the battery out (then or now). 
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06-18-2003, 05:42 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 268
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Back during memorial day weekend, CompUSA had these going for $50 after MIR. Not saying to wait for it to get that low again, but when CompUSA puts something on the "overstocked and not selling quickly enough" list you know there's gonna be major rebates on it within a few months. 
-arebelspy
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06-18-2003, 05:47 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 498
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This kind of sleeves will leave us good memory(HUGE monster!). Good review!.
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06-18-2003, 06:03 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 541
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The screen corruption is also in the Pitech Dual CF case (which is a large amount smaller than the Nexipak, but no battery.) occasionally, same with my old MA701. That really isn't the hardware's fault.
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06-18-2003, 08:28 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 125
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I've been looking at dual-CF sleeves. A couple reviews of other products suggest that the second slot can only be used for a memory card, and can't be used for a "device" like a camera or wireless network card. I don't know if a microdrive counts as a memory card or as a device.
Does your experience with card recognition strangeness suggest that this is the case with this unit? Were you able to get two devices working at the same time?
-- Kevin
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06-18-2003, 09:52 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 1,043
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My Compaq single PC sleeve died almost two weeks ago. It just started giving error messages, and not mounting storage cards or allowing use of CF cameras. So I tracked down a replacement that suited me; the PiTech MemPlug offers 2 CF slots, one on top, one on the left side (if in your left hand, the slot is in your palm), but as stated above it has no battery. I'm a bit concerned about battery life, so now I'm looking into battery extender options for adapting to the serial port...
Anyway, I sought as much information as possible before ordering, and it seemed confirmed that the second slot, the Type I slot on the side, is for memory cards only. Fine, I could live with that. But being a curious sort, I decided to pop in my CF modem anyway. Error message. Okay, so what about my Pretec CF camera? Nope, same deal. Then I tried my new (beaten up demo from Office Depot, CDN$50) HP CF camera. No error. Okay, so I started up the (incredible, amazingly wonderful) mmVision software and guess what - it WORKED! Just to be sure there wasn't any sort of crossover nonsense going on I popped in the Socket CF modem in the top slot, and connected to my ISP. Then I shot a minute of video while downloading my email and loading a webpage at the same time. Understandably the video was jerky, as the 3835 processor was being taxed fairly heavily by all this activity, but it was a video file. Stills worked fine too.
Conclusion? Well, my guess is that the mechanisms used by the HP camera, possibly the pins used in particular, are different from what the Pretec uses, and that this or some other anomaly is allowing the feed from the camera to be read by what is supposedly a memory-only CF slot. This is really cool, as it allows me to use the thing as a camera while the top slot is occupied. A couple of configurations/uses:
~ HP camera in the side + modem in the top + Microsoft Portrait running = video conferencing over dialup.
~ HP camera in side + nothing in SD slot (to get the top CF slot read as 'Storage Card' so that the mmVision software will store images there, as there's no option to save to Storage Card2 or whatever) + microdrive (Type II, fatter card) in the top slot = hours and hours of video potential, or thousands of still images at full resolution and quality settings (average 260KB per JPG with mmVision at max.).
There's lots of uses for this combination, as as far as I know so far this is the cheapest solution for such combinations. Of course, I did get very lucky with the HP camera. I watched that thing for over a year, checking in every few weeks, and finally they dropped the price from $249 to $99... then to $49 when I asked the salesman to unplug it from the security system for me. I guess they thought it was broken or something. Works fine though, really great actually. It blows the Pretec 1.3Mp CF out of the water for quality all-round, though the resolution is a mere 0.3Mp. Video's a bit jerky, but limited only by memory availability. I'm getting a 256MB SD soon, so that's likely where I'll be saving to, but even for the side-mounted VoIP+video, which I'll not use often, it's very cool having this MemPlug thing. Skinny, too. Way more trim than that clunky Compaq single sleeve, and a flip-cover pops right into it. I just used the one from my old coverpaq, switching the hinge to the right side to keep the camera clear for all angles.
I'm not slagging the Nexian product at all with this comment, but for what it's worth, PiTech's support and sales people were absolutely brilliant in handling all my questions and with their prompt replies to email. Not the US rep, but the folks in Kowloon. The US company, DataAnywhere, seems to have lost my first message (left during office hours), and took a couple of days to get back to my second message (also during office hours, this time in the mid-morning), and their only comment was that they might have MemPlugs in stock within a few weeks. lol - sale lost to the manufacturer.
__________________
Gerard Ivan Samija
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06-18-2003, 11:28 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 541
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Both my Netgear and Linksys work in the left slot (the memory only one) because both are Type I cards. The top however should work with any card, guaranteed. (This also means a MD won't work in the left slow on the Pitech one)
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06-18-2003, 11:37 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 1
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Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for iPAQ
I have had my Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for about 3 months and have nothing but good things to say about it. Before I bought it, I often ran my battery down before the end of the day. I haven't had that happen a single time since I bought it. I don't worry too much about whether the battery meters are accuarate, since I never run it down anyway. (Besides, that is an OS problem) I keep a Socket Wireless Card in Slot 1 and a 512mb CF card in the second. Both work great! This unit is also easier to to charge in my car since the battery has the same type of power jack that the IPAQ 3600s used. (I hate the sinc receptical chargers.) This also fits into my IHolster. The extra thickness is easily worth the convenience of having the extra power and extra slot. (By the way, I sent the Nexian folks a question about what the indented area was for on the back of the sleeve. The said is had something to do with a design that was made for an add-on for military use. They didn't say what the add-on was.
Well worth the money!
Ron Lyons
Great product that is worth the money!
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06-19-2003, 06:02 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 23
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Personally I like what I did; I upgraded my IPAQ 3765 from 64 to 128 MB memory and replaced the batter with a 2x longer battery. Now I can cruise around without the sleeve and listen to music or whatever.
If I want to go wireless, I simply use my $39 Compaq CF sleave. I have even thought about buying the $99 Compaq CF+ sleeve which includes even more battery.
I guess I am saying I have enough memory most of the time and I don't want the thick heavy sleeve.
-mj
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