Upwardly mobile computers

You don't have to be a yuppie to own one. Several generations of the palmtop and portable computers are reviewed here (TES 1996-9). Featuring:

Palm III - personal organiser

Phillip's Nino 300 palm size PC

Psion Series 5

HP 320 LX Palmtop PC

Apple eMate

Mobile computing

Palm III - personal organiser with PC cable, email, synchronising and network software (also for Mac). From 3Com - www.3com.com Price £299 or less

3com's Palm organiser has been a major success - selling millions in just a couple of years and easily grabbing a two third share of its market. It wins by offering an electronic diary, calculator and address book to fit a pocket without weighing it down. It's so simple to use that to its credit, a read of the manuals teaches only a few new tricks. In fact so much is 'up-front', you'll not have to search menus to say, find a phone number, change views and so on.

As you add diary entries, you can use alarms to warn minutes or few weeks ahead of time. You can enter birthdays that remind you annually or meetings that run monthly. While all this is common fare, a free search for say, a name across everything on the machine is an extra I really value.

There's other software built-in such as a 'to do list' for those daily never-doing nag items. And there are hundreds more to add in from the Internet or shareware discs. I settled on a clock, some novels, a web browser, space invaders, and a utility to put family photos on the screen.

What keeps the Palm III small is its lack of a keyboard. To enter text, you tap on screen keys or write in an easily mastered alphabet. In practice this is almost faultless, but it needs time to do without an embarrassing fumble in public. Many people simply use the Palm alongside their PC organisers such as Schedule and Outlook - they put it in its cradle, push a button and watch it synchronise the contents of both the PC and handheld. If they need to make copious notes they do this on the big machine.

In this the third generation of 3com's electronic organiser you can read and reply to email away from your machine as well as 'beam' things to other Palm III users. There's now space for 6000 addresses, 3000 appointments and 1500 to-dos - enough to make the older Palm Pilot Professional more than adequate at £50 less.

To compare the Psion and Windows palm offerings with the Palm Pilot is to compare chalk with cheese. Firstly the applications run so fast it makes the rest seem sedated. Next the idea of managing files is so transparent you may as well forget the concept. Finally, if you don't need a portable word processor but value size and simplicity this could suit very well.

Phillip's Nino 300 palm size PC. Windows CE 2 handheld with power adapter, docking cradle, PC software and carrying case. Typical price £299 incl. vat from high street outlets.  Web: www.nino.philips.com (TES 1998)

In this age where everything from the telephone to the telly is going digital, here is a really smart way of helping your diary go digital too. It's a Philip's Nino, a pocket organiser whose satin-chrome good looks store not just a diary, but an address book, note maker, voice memo and would you believe e-mail messages.

If work is a-wash with 'to-dos' like meetings and marking this lets you prioritise things or set alarms that beep when they are due. You can see your dairy as a day or month list, search for phone numbers by first names or simply enjoy the tidiness of your life-gone-digital.

But today these things are passé. The big issue with pocket machines is interacting with them - the Nino uses a compact edition of Windows so there's some familiarity and you tap on the screen with a stylus (or finger) to choose menu items. You can also talk to it and say "Go to - Calendar - Week" and the diary shows this month's appointments, while saying "Dial - Harry" can get it to play number tones into a phone mouthpiece.

When you need to enter some details, you can choose between using the stylus to tap on a keyboard or drawing letter shapes. It magically recognises writing and tries to predict the word you are entering - for example type 'curri' and it offers 'curriculum'. This is time saving, mildly educational and does indeed work with practice.

Most people will pop this in its docking cradle to get more easily typed details from a desk computer. This is even more elegant because if you've added say, a new appointment to one machine and not the other, the two machines sort out their differences. It also happens to the sound of an electronic twang and as the Nino juices up its batteries from the cradle.

The Nino comes ready to synchronise with MS Schedule (supplied) or Outlook - text, voice and e-mail notes are copied and converted transparently. If you have a network, all sorts of clever things like remote access to your computer are possible. If you must, there's also a not too pricey modem to admit you into the corporate hyperspace of Internet surfing with a mobile phone. Only Filofax lovers will spot that the carrying pouch almost has room for library tickets, reward cards or dry cleaning receipts.

Psion Series 5 with touch sensitive, backlit screen. Pocket PC with 4Mb £439 or 8Mb £499.95 from retail outlets. Built-in word processor, spreadsheet, drawing, voice dictation, address book. Includes cable and PsiWin 2 software for Windows 95. Mac kit available shortly. Fax, mail and Internet using optional modem + PC card adapter. Battery life - one month on 2 AA cells. Web contact: www.psion.com (TES 1998)

It is almost a certainty that, at a meeting close by, someone is whipping out their electronic organiser and using it to take notes or check their diary. If you have time to spare, and want to know why they so popular just say to them "I just can’t see how you find that useful" and prepare for a long reply.

The odds are that the gadget is a ‘Series 3’ or Acorn Pocket Book made by UK palmtop maker Psion. Now, with the surprise launch of the Series 5, they hope win over more to the electronic habit that puts a diary, address book, alarm clock and calculator in one pocket.

The new one is a mature, well designed product. Most remarkable is its grown-up keyboard, with laptop sized keys closely arranged. Its ‘near touch-typing’ quality will win converts, while one finger types will find it better too. An old trick of picking it up like a burger and typing with two thumbs works too, though it is a bit longer than before.

It opens up clamshell style to show menu buttons spaced around the screen’s frame – keeping them off screen saves on precious space - you press these to move between the diary, clock and so on much like you do with Windows 95, only this seems better if one’s allowed to say that. The software is like Windows with icons for the files where you save your work and you use a stylus to touch the screen to choose things. This is no gimmick as you can speed through finding appointments and setting alarms. In the word processor, normally fussy things like formatting text, checking the spelling, copying and pasting are very accessible. In fact, these tasks were rarely used before.

The spreadsheet works like a real spreadsheet in that you can build formulae by pointing, add cell shading and draw graphs, including x-y graphs with little hassle. Spreadsheets, tables and graphs can also be pasted into documents as you come to expect. An intriguing ‘sketch’ program lets you draw a street map, or add your signature to a letter.

Thus far schools might consider this as a cheap PC, it’s just that the address book, diary and to-do list features make it a great teacher’s organiser. These features are refined, customisable and even exceptional. They offer unusual benefits like searching for when you met last, finding people by their address, or getting a reminder every last Tuesday of the month. Hopping about to find a date - a much needed feature, is quick thanks to buttons marked ‘today’ and ‘go to’, otherwise a double click on a title bar brings up a calendar.

You can connect to a PC with the cable provided and the software will automatically switch it on. On the PC desktop you can drag files across and they are converted to PC files transparently. It will run a weekly backup, and for the desk-bound it will synchronise the ‘Schedule’ diary on the PC. Maybe best of all, when you choose ‘Print’ on the Psion, the work is sent to the printer on your system. Again, this is quite transparent.

Existing Psion users, including many addicts will find much to drool over. A voice memo lets them record notes - up to 15 minutes long on the larger memory model. They can do this on the fly without opening the case or losing an older memo. There’s no telling how handy it could be for jotting down phone numbers, directions or who’s for detention.

Those with the cash to upgrade will find a slicker product. The case is a great piece of design - it sits solid, for example when you tap the screen but drop test it I did not. Those without cash should avoid looking at one or console themselves with the fact that touch sensitive screens are less clear and really need their battery juice eating backlight. Note too, that your Series 3 work is converted, though none of your old applications, flash disks, or power supplies will work with this. It was really intended for the fresh buyer. As it happens, upgraders are part cause of short supply in the shops.

Unlike a few years ago, there are countless personal organisers, called ‘Windows CE’ machines, competing for your pocket. They work well with Windows software (this does), connect to it perfectly (this does) and have handy email features as this may in time. Set beside the Psion’s rich set of no-fuss, organiser software, the current CE machines don’t look so smart. If e-mail and fax features really matter, I’d wait to check Psion’s Internet package, due in the coming months. If not, and your meeting is a bit dull, just say to a Win CE user, "Don’t you wish you’d waited and got a Psion 5", and then run.

Apple eMate (TES 1997)

What would you say to a class set of portable computers? And I don't mean those where the batteries drain within the hour, or the screen and keyboard are tiny, but something somewhere between here and good. Even this far, I think the answer is yes and please.

Apple Computer is hoping you'll say yes to their new eMate portable, a machine they are making expressly for education and which grew a crowd at January's BETT show. With its full sized keyboard children can take notes, draw diagrams and even browse Internet-style pages from their desk. Its bright green screen and use of a pen instead of a mouse make it an interesting step up from palmtops, such as Acorn's Pocket Books, which has won friends in schools. Crucially it not only has a rugged case, it also dispenses with delicate, so-called hard discs to store everything on a chip.

The eMate's carrying handle and its safety conscious, contoured shape give the look of a serious piece of 'kid-ware'. Surprisingly, to get its good looks, Apple actually went to a famous Italian car designer. It seems to have paid off, but honestly, they must have known that when you give a computer to the designer of a Porsche, you get back a computer that looks like a Porsche, albeit a flattened one.

When you lift up the bulging bonnet the machine switches on and is ready for use: there's a notepad, a calculator and a word processor which displays different text styles and fonts much like a desktop machine. If you want to add a diagram, a program lets you draw with the pen and it can turn vague lines into straight lines, and round shapes into perfect circles. Using a modem, it can even connect to the Internet and browse 'web pages', but Apple feel that, for ordinary practical reasons, you will want children to browse a locally stored stash of pages instead.

The eMate's engine or processor is similar to Apple's handheld personal organiser, the Newton 130 famed for recognising hand writing. In fact, this and the Newton's diary and address book are all here and working. While it's not clear what children will make of having shaky hand writing turned into text, the fact that the eMate is easy on battery juice, with 28 hours between recharges, is almost a killer feature beside laptops which barely last the lesson.

IT buffs will be impressed by the many ways the machine can connect to other computers. An 'infra-red port' can 'beam' work to other eMates, to a desktop machine or even to a modern printer. It offers plenty more industry standard ways to connect to modems, Apple printers, Apple networks, and there's even a way of docking with a desktop machine. And for a belt to go with these braces, a PC card slot allows all sorts of connections to yet more modems, networks and mobile phones.

That the machine has a different operating system at a time when PC's and Microsoft Windows seem to 'rule OK' is something of a puzzle. But IT marketing consultant Roger Brodie, reminds that schools still use a range of platforms, so if children use this to do work, and print and transfer it to other machines as well as the Emate does, then this operating system point is no issue.

Nigel Paine, chief executive of SCET (The Scottish Council for Educational Technology) sees the eMate as offering an opportunity for pupils to collect and develop material independently and then collate their work onto a multimedia Mac or PC. He added that,"It will ease congestion on desktop PCs and broaden pupils' experience of IT applications, though an issue for Apple is whether they will be able to price it low enough to attract significant investment".

The bottom line then, with something so close to good, is whether Apple will get the marketing right. Will they tempt schools with a promise of loads of software in eMate versions? Will they bundle a spreadsheet that does maths and graphs or is that an extra? And of course, will the US price of $800 convert to any less than £800. On past form, nice dollar prices have always become not nice pounds over here.

Lap up the specs: Apple's eMate 300 features a 25 MHz ARM 710a RISC processor, 3Mb RAM and 8Mb of ROM. It has a 480 x 320 dot greyscale liquid crystal display with backlighting. Connections for power, sound, PC card modems, and for serial devices such as modems and Apple networks are built-in.

HP 320 LX Palmtop PC with Microsoft Windows CE and wide touch screen. Infra red port, standard PC card slot, PC flash memory card for additional storage (TES 1997)

Thousands of the pocket sized computers they call 'palmtops' can be found in schools. Pupils use them for everyday writing and at around £250, the Pocket Book Acorn sells by the class set and sometimes by the kilo.

Teachers use them too. They use them as diaries, address books, and some say they can't exist without them. So common are they that you can now open one in a staff room coffee table and not be called a yuppie. Different maybe, but thankfully not a yuppie.

The palmtop PC is in a renaissance, as all the big firms launch new devices with a screen that work and feel like Microsoft Windows. Hewlett-Packard, the main competitor to the Pocket Book manufacturer Psion, offer this new solidly built 300 series machine. It had me staring at the screen wondering how to hit the Windows 95 Start button. Then I realised that this is a touch screen you press it and other buttons with a stylus, though they work well enough with a finger. That this prototype was very new and had little documentation is my excuse, but after that, anyone familiar with Windows 95 will find this very easy to use indeed. For the sake of a slightly bigger case size, the wider screen is appreciated. Its clarity, as on this copy was not - HP are famed for putting things right but I'd check it in the shop in case.

Likewise, for the basic versions of the ubiquitous Microsoft Word, and Excel included here. Word lets you type and format text and using a large type size the only thing slowing you down is the usual small keyboard. Those with small fingers, or one finger typists will not mind. The Excel spreadsheet is fine, though it doesn't do charts - that's OK for most people, but some classrooms will want that.

Classrooms aside, Microsoft's Schedule and Exchange are supplied which give you an diary, an address book you can keep on a desktop PC as well as this palmtop. The excellent feature is that you can plug into a desktop PC and automatically synchronise entries on the two systems. You can copy files between the two systems by dragging them from one Window to another and this works unusually well - even without a manual.

For the few, the other excellent, yuppie earning point is that it you can plug in a modem, surf the Internet and pick up your electronic mail.

Mobile computing (TES 1997)

They say that we are living in a divided society where only some of us welcome what technology offers. The rest they say are scared witless by it or just do not see what it can do for them.

They are not just talking computers here. There is plenty of useful technology that people are pausing over - from the fax machines that people puzzle over, to the mobile phones that others pose over. When technology is this hard, or just plain irritating it's easy to empathise.

They also say that we will use it if the benefit outweighs the hassle and they are so right. When there is a queue for train tickets, I can teach myself the ticket machine. Or if a school outing went awry and I needed help, a mobile is life saver I could learn to pose with.

Many have discovered the benefits of one portable computer which has such a tiny keyboard and screen. Others pass over them in the wait for something better, while the schools that have bought them in job lots say they use them daily to take notes, record data and even do data logging.

Small though it is, Psion’s Series 3 computer, known also as Acorn’s Pocket Book gives no short measure on clever features. And today there is a ‘3c’ version which makes transferring data to other machines unusually easy. The new Psion has an infrared transmitter as a TV remote has, and lets pupils ‘zap’ or beam their work to a printer without any need for a cable. With a range of a few feet, you cannot yet beam your register to the office, but you CAN beam homework to the class. It sounds dreamy, till they start beaming the answers around. And as for using these in exams - I’d think out the seating plan first.

While the new feature will gain recruits to palmtop paradise, Psion has not done existing users any favours because all the printer cables for the old machine will not work with the new. Even Acorn is cautious about giving the new version an open welcome. They remind that infrared compatible printers are still rare in schools while reassuring that support, and supply of the 3a version will continue.

That the palmtop fits into a pocket endears this to the million people who have bought it. They like the electronic diary and address book - things they need when they’re miles from a desk or power socket. There is no comparison with paper: can anyone imagine an address book written in one pen colour and without crossed out names. You’ve got one? Eek, then how about one that searches for contacts when you can only remember their first name, their job title or where they live? Or one that finds who called when you dial 1471, and is simply uncanny.

The diary is a diary plus - schools where all the staff have palmtops say they have a school diary file that people merge with their own. And the teachers say they set alarms to remind of homeworks due back, of irregular meetings or just to call someone back at a certain time. Everyone seems to have their own special uses - from alarms that warn about parking meters, to phone-like alarms that go off and get noisy pupils checking their pockets.

'Apple' too has a hand held portable but with all the style that goes with their mark. While Apple’s Newton needs a bigger pocket instead of typing you write on the screen with a ‘pen’, and it turns the writing into text. What is really strange is that it works - proof maybe that the pen is mightier than the keyboard.

Though it costs around £500, the Newton 130 is as powerful as some desktop machines, and with everything driven by a pen, arguably easier to use. It has the diary, notepad and address book features that make it a personal organiser worthy of a trial.

As with the Psion you can beam stuff around, but it also has a slot that takes a ‘PC card’ modem to send faxes or handle mail from the Internet. The Psion can do this too, but less elegantly and for an extra £100.

While we are talking money, another £400 will buy you a modern GSM mobile phone and a special PC card, where you can enjoy total mobility and send electronic mail from the car or the beach. At today’s prices this seems a frippery, but Apple is already selling this to hospitals and the police. Here they say that people can take notes at the bedside or roadside, and save time by not having to write things up back at base. If your day is peppered with too much ‘downtime’ to waste, this is technology to help.

For the wealthy it is a tough choice - they are sure to want Apple’s latest, the Newton 2000, with its graphical Internet browser. Or for just £850, the Nokia 9000 gives them a phone, fax, diary and Internet connection all in one pocket. Make no mistake, being able to go surfing from anywhere in school is seriously useful, but those with style should head for the beach!

Never mind, the wait for something better is infinite, but the next new thing to catch is Apple’s eMate, a designed for school Newton with a proper keyboard, gadgets to connect to almost anything at a ‘800 dollar’ price. Yes, the wireless really has returned, the technology is almost good, and almost works. The only scary thing left is the mobile phone bill.

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