Bradskey
02-11-2007, 06:11 AM
Well, on my second battery and after years of faithful service I'm retiring my Jornada 568. I really liked it -- it was a solid device, but the external construction didn't stand up as well as a device as costly as it was should have. The crappy paint on the housing corroded and bubbled and came off over time. The icons on the buttons partially wore off where I touched them frequently. The thin bezel around the bottome edge of the D-pad cracked. The so-so display succombed to flecks of dust under the screen over time. I thought the integrated flip cover was a big plus back in the day, buy eventually the hinge cracked and I removed it permanently and just got used to not having it. Wi-Fi was only possible with an old power-sucking Socket CF WiFi card, which meant I had to remove my storage card where a lot of my apps and files resided. Internal memory was full to bursting with apps and files. By comparison the Jornada 548 that I had for only year waaaaaaay back was far better built, with its solid anodized metal housing and sturdy flip cover.
But in spite of all that it was a good device. The venerable old StrongARM 206MHz processor still felt plenty snappy under PPC 2002. At one point I was able to update it with the last EUU4 for PPC 2002. Had lots of great and still plenty usable apps installed on it. As recently as a couple years ago I was still buying an occasional game for it. I was still using it the heaviest as an ebook reader and for a few personal databases.
But now I'm moving on. Bought myself an Axim x51v with WM5. I guess I'm a dinosaur -- still going for the standalone PPC, but I have a perfectly good clamshell phone, thank you very much. Most of my rather extensive software library transferred to the new device without a hitch. In some cases I am now able to use the latest version. Some developers offer free upgrades. Others provide good discounts for upgrades. Other apps are just old and not updated, but still run on the new device. A handful of odd games were never updated and don't work, so I'll have to give them up.
I think I got my money's worth out of the Jornada. I'll keep it around as a backup to test any apps/games I write for backward compatibility. Time to enjoy the benefit of several years of technological advancements.
But in spite of all that it was a good device. The venerable old StrongARM 206MHz processor still felt plenty snappy under PPC 2002. At one point I was able to update it with the last EUU4 for PPC 2002. Had lots of great and still plenty usable apps installed on it. As recently as a couple years ago I was still buying an occasional game for it. I was still using it the heaviest as an ebook reader and for a few personal databases.
But now I'm moving on. Bought myself an Axim x51v with WM5. I guess I'm a dinosaur -- still going for the standalone PPC, but I have a perfectly good clamshell phone, thank you very much. Most of my rather extensive software library transferred to the new device without a hitch. In some cases I am now able to use the latest version. Some developers offer free upgrades. Others provide good discounts for upgrades. Other apps are just old and not updated, but still run on the new device. A handful of odd games were never updated and don't work, so I'll have to give them up.
I think I got my money's worth out of the Jornada. I'll keep it around as a backup to test any apps/games I write for backward compatibility. Time to enjoy the benefit of several years of technological advancements.