by ottoman » Mar 24, 2002 @ 7:25am
I would look at the HP568 and (I shudder to speak it) Audiovox before committing to the iPAQ3850/3835. The Audiovox is cheap now ($299) at CompUSA and they just released the fix for the diagonal problem (USA release is coming but the Japanese fix works fine of the US models). The battery life of the Audiovox sucks but is no worse than the original iPAQs. The HP has only one flaw IMO: dust. If you can get past that than it is, again IMO, much better than the iPAQ. No contrast issues, much faster in the gaming department, accessories that fit the devices without making it unmanageable like the iPAQ.
Again this is just my opinion but I was very disappointed in my iPAQ 3835 and have not regreted exchanging it for the E200 as of yet. If Compaq would only acknowledge their problems with the new model and fix them like HP (button problem), Toshiba (diagonal fix), and Casio (video corruption) did then maybe I wouldn't have dumped it for another brand. But instead they say everything is working as designed (contrast issue) or cannot be fixed (up to 30% GAPI speed degregation). Excuses.
Also Casio has a task manager for shutting down applications like iTask. Unfortunately the morons didn't put it in rom so it could be assigned to a button out of the box like Compaq. The software bundle is the only thing positive about going with Compaq at this point. Good luck.