Slashdot Log In
Agenda VR3 Review
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Apr 09, 2001 05:35 PM
from the people-looking-at-i dept.
from the people-looking-at-i dept.
jlam writes: "Brighthand has a review on the Linux based Agenda VR3 PDA. Sounds like the product was rushed out the door after being delayed almost a year, has performance problems, and is depending on the talents of the open-source community to help fix the problems. The review has screenshots of the PDA including the boot up screens." I've also been using mine. I agree with parts of the above review -- there's some definite problems with the device. However, from what I've heard there's a device with a 130 MIPs chip, rechargeable battery and some other goodies in development right now. The additional speed will help out, as the current device has speed issues. Summary: It's got definite potential, but I think it came out a bit too early.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Agenda VR3 Review
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 110 comments
(Spill at 50!) | Index Only
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
|
2
(1)
|
2
Re:Vaporware, vaporware, how I adore thee . . . (Score:5)
That's a cheap shot. They're being sued by Milberg Weiss, who with an ounce of research you'd find sue any company whose stock drops a lot. The scam, of course, is "give us some settlement money or we'll trash your company in the press and drag you through court for the next five years. Past victims include VA Linux [slashdot.org], amongst many, many others.
Fun links: Milberg Weiss nailed for $45M [coopercook.com]
... or try searching for "Bill Lerach" on Google.
An article titled "Bloodsucking Scumbag" [lycos.com]
Ugh. This is not what we need. (Score:3)
Re:Is Linux really the OS you want on your handhel (Score:3)
Windows CE (also known as Windows Powered * PC, where * is Pocket, Handheld, Auto, and Cell phone, and whatever else) is not a port of Windows (any version, 9x or NT). It's a complete rewrite from the ground up. The misconception comes from the fact that Windows CE supports a subset of the Win32 API (look around on MSDN sometime and you'll see a lot of functions that either aren't supported by CE or have limited functionality -- the goal was to reduce the number of APIs that have duplicate functionality).
Windows CE is actually very nice OS -- extremely modular, able to take advantage of several hardware platforms (MIPS, SH3/4, ARM, PPC, and x86), and written explicitly for embedded systems. Most people seem to dislike Windows CE (prior to Pocket PC, anyway) due to the clunky gui. What most people don't realize, though, is that it's not difficult for a development house to replace the gui with something nicer-looking (look at the AutoPC, for instance, or the Pocket PCs, which run Windows CE 3.0), thanks to the modular nature of Windows CE. For an interesting read about the origins of Windows CE, check out Inside Microsoft Windows CE [barnesandnoble.com] (John Murray, Microsoft Press). It's a bit old (September 1998), but it gives a good account of how Windows CE was originally supposed to be a stripped down NT, but ended up being written from scratch.
Re:Ugh. This is not what we need. (Score:3)
Re-badged Psion Revos. Best handheld device on the market - Runs the Symbian [symbian.com] Platform, aren't much bigger than a Palm V and has a good keyboard.
Review is correct, but potential of device is good (Score:3)
Would I suggest it to a normal PDA user? Definitely not yet. It needs to have its task switching system fixed, its X optimized or stream-lined, and its startup procedure tailored to end users. However, if you hook up the serial port to your linux box, start up ppp, and then telnet into the device, its amazingly passable as a unix machine. Of course that is not what it's designed for. Most people don't want a 2x speed DEC 3100 workstation
As to the limit on the number of apps: First I noticed that swap wasn't used, nor should it, but a 2.4.x kernel running out of memory without any swap-styled VM pages seems to "fit the bill" for what happens to these devices when you run too many apps. My guess is that some kernel hacking needs to be done to better handle low-memory management. But consider this. I got python on it, and it works, a few threads and all.
End result: It needs a lot of help, but it has enough ooph (66mhz, 16mb flashram, 8mb rom) to be a very reasonable PDA.. it just needs to have its resources re-oriented and one needs to not attempt "quick ports", which are easy, but do not take into account that its such an under-powered linux device that tweaks are a must!
The OS doesn't matter that much (Score:5)
For PDAs the bottom line is the applications, battery life and form factor. What operating system it's running comes in a long distance behind these biggies. The OS certainly plays a part in all of the above things, but the end user simply doesn't care that much. Get the apps running right and it could be running CrapOS 0.1 for all the user cares.
Personally I think Linux has the potential to be great for PDAs but maybe not with the Agenda.
6 to 8 hours of use? (Score:3)
Going to wait for a post-release review (Score:5)
I eagerly await a review after the April 23rd ship date - I want to see the potential this thing really has. I will probably seriously consider a second generation device, but it must have usability as well as the "toy" factor, including these features:
- lithium ion battery with decent (10-20 hour) lifetime. This is one of my largest considerations because otherwise I have to plunk down more money for less-convenient NiMH batteries (which I use in my current PDA and digital camera).
- Slightly larger screen. This agenda has a 3" x 2 1/8" screen (interesting that a Hong Kong company uses English units, or so it seems). This is just too darned small, like the Palms, for my liking (my WinCE palmtop has a wonderful 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" - unreasonable for handhelds, I know.) Also, reverse backlighting annoys me, there should be a switch to make it normal like the Palm hack.
- A set of physical scroll buttons (up and down) is essential; I like to read on my palmtops, and to tap to scroll down too much of a pain.
- The applications should run about as fast as Palms - after all, the Palms have less than a 30 Mhz processor. This is the true test of how fast Linux can be on slower devices.
- expansion cards for storage and wireless networking are essential - modems are practically useless (at least to me), but a wireless network card would give me access in many buildings I occupy.
We'll just have to see how it goes.
This is a very bad way (Score:3)
I would have much rather had to wait a few months and had a product that worked nearly flawlessly, so that I could recommend it to my friends, rather than be forced to recommend a winCE powered, or palmOS powered device. It's really a shame that market pressure ruins so many good ideas.
Latest excuse for bugs? (Score:5)
I can just see the letter to customers now...
Dear Customer: Thanks for buying our PDA. Sorry it is a very buggy. But you can volunteer to fix it for us!
Is Linux really the OS you want on your handheld? (Score:3)
Handhelds have smaller displays, less memory and are put to different uses than desktop or notebook PCs. Because of this, porting over a desktop OS to a handheld isn't always the great idea that it originally seems - Windows CE anyone?
The two OSes that have done well in handhelds have been PalmOS (used by Palm, IBM, Handspring, Sony, etc) and EPOC (used by Psion and its licensees). Both of these were designed from the ground up with handheld usage in mind.
Linux functionality in a handheld might cool but is it any more beneficial to a handheld user than the other OSes already in the market place?
Your "knowledge" of economics is laughable. (Score:3)
Quite frankly, I'm [sic] enjoying the so called "Clinton-Damaged" economy for the last few years.
I think you're trying to say that you've been enjoying the economy -- but even if that is what you mean, you're quite confused.
The Republicans fought Clinton every step of the way. We fought like tigers to preserve the gains of the Reagan/Bush years. We sweated blood to preserve the prosperity that we'd brought to America in the 1980's. And we did not fail. True, if we'd been able to stay on track between 1992 and 2000, you'd be looking at a 15,000 Dow today -- and you'd be enjoying a hard currency, too, not the same old soft "Democratic funny money" based on the "paper standard".
The entire "Internet Bubble" was the direct result of government interference in the economy. The real, solid prosperity of the 1980's was based on the financial acumen of brilliant men like Michael Milken. The false, soap-bubble "prosperity" of the 1990's was based on the grimy jabberings of a million "nerds" creating "products" which don't even really exist. Software is a nice hobby, but there is no product there. A long series of zeroes and ones is not something a sane man will spend money on -- regardless of how much care was lavished on putting them in just the right order.
Government interference, you say? Yes, indeed. Read up about the ARPANet: That's the government pork-barrel boondoggle that grew into the Internet. During the 1980's, honest businesses in a fair, competitive environment produced far superior alternatives: Compuserve, AOL, Prodigy, the list goes on. All were more resource-efficient than the wasteful Internet, with its bloated packet-switching and insane reliance on text files for so many purposes (and even by text standards, they're still fat -- look at how much space in an XML file is wasted on "tags" some time). Any one of those private-sector innovations was far superior to what we've got now -- but the government essentially went into competition with the private sector, and steamrollered them with massive expenditures of tax money.
Imagine that -- an innovative, honest company called Prodigy was TAXED INTO PENURY, with the government's ill-gotten gains immediately spent to destroy what was left.
Naturally, the government-created Internet spawned a culture of lies, delusions, and theft.
And now we reap the whirlwind. The psychotic "Internet mentality" has taken such a deep hold that Americans actually oppose a tax cut that will restart the economy by putting wealth back into the hands of the justly wealthy who created it in the first place, and who will gladly create more if they only have some spare capital to work with.