Help me find a replacement for my beloved Tosh E800

[Guest ripnet]

Hi,

I was recently burgled, and my Toshiba E800 was stolen. Im now looking for a replacement, but it seems Toshiba have pulled out of the PDA market.

I want a Windows Mobile PDA with VGA screen, bluetooth, wifi and a jog dial. I would want to run some hack to enable 'true vga' as I had on the toshiba with VGAHack (was running WM2003 NOT SE).

It seems to me the only Windows Mobile PPC's available with VGA are

1. Dell X50V

2. Fujutsu-Siemens Looks

3. one of the IPaq's

It looks to me like the Dell lacks the jog dial (i use it for ebooks). Im guessing these are all running WM2003SE or later, so will suffer from slow boot times.

Have I missed any? can anyone comment on the scroll wheel and build quality of these devices please?

On a positive note, I paid

Edited May 2, 2006 by ripnet

[Guest Confucious]

The Universal (MDA Pro, XDA Exec, M5000 etc) has WM5, VGA SD card (but no CF or jog Dial.

It also has WiFi, 3G and a keyboard.

[Guest ripnet]

Thanks for the reply ;)

I looked at the Universal, but was put off by price, lack of jog wheel and the fact it is made by HTC whose previous phone I owned (the SPV C550) needed repairing 3 times so far this year, so I dont trust their build quality.

The tosh E800 was built like a tank - i had it years and it worked perfectly

I think only the Fujutsu-Siemens Looks one has the VGA and jog dial and is still manufactured

cheers

g

The Universal (MDA Pro, XDA Exec, M5000 etc) has WM5, VGA SD card (but no CF or jog Dial.

It also has WiFi, 3G and a keyboard.

[Guest Confucious]

I have had a C500, C550 and a Universal - the buid quality of the C550 was awful - the others were far better. If that was the only thing putting you off I'd say don't let it but as you want a jog then maybe it's not for you. As for the price, it is expensive but can be got cheaper with a phone contract and with T-Mobile's unlimited data plans you have the internet in your pocket.

Sorry, I don't know much about the Looks so can't coment.

Good luck.

[Guest Zaelo]

Don't buy G900. As a phone it is 3 of 5 , maybe 4. As a PDA it is 0.5 of 5. Geez I even did not expect so shitty device. Oh yeah, it shares its score with even the shittiest Windows Pocket 6. I still cannot believe what s*** I plunge into. All is so inconvenient I mean Windows. You cannot run functions without many pushings the buttons and waiting long until it started. To do something you must close current process 'cause you cannot minimize - there is no button to minimize so you are closing the process go to start another one and then close it and go back to the first. And this and the other functionality is sooooo annoying and freaking inconvenient... You even cannot save some settings. Imagine that you spend several minutes every time to set them that you could use a function for half a second. Then you quit the program and say goodbye to settings, next time you will spend again minutes to set them. It obviously is Windows which always was sucking.

[Guest Confucious]

Most people complain because WM doesnt close apps, it just mininises them...

What a strange post!

I've never heard of anyone's settings not being saved, sounds like a faulty dedvice, or user error...

[Guest ripnet]

Don't buy G900. As a phone it is 3 of 5 , maybe 4. As a PDA it is 0.5 of 5. Geez I even did not expect so shitty device. Oh yeah, it shares its score with

Too late :) i got a g900 on launch day, and its a piece of s**T... going straight on ebay as soon as a decent 3g vga device comes out (ETen im looking at you!) ...

1. unstable (ie, finding it hard locked having missed calls most days)

2. slow, very bad network performance (ie, dead spots everywhere my hermes got 3g),

3. very poor battery life (doesnt even last the whole day).

4. screen invisible in sunlight,

5. keyboard cant keep up with text,

6. x9 plugin supplied is very poor,

7. lockups on coming out of standby (even with the patch),

8. ringer too quiet,

9. no remote desktop in rom,

10. very limited storage space,

11. no sdhc support.

12. If you try and save a large (ie > 3meg ish) file to the SD card in Opera, the device hard locks every time. Works OK on IE

Apart from that its fantastic (ie, the 800x600 screen is GREAT, for 5 mins until the battery goes flat, and ive had no screen alignment problems that plagued by launch day vario2) (9 can be worked around btw).

Aparently there is an updated rom that /might/ fix some of these issues, but toshiba wont give it to early adpoters yet (ie, they havent released an update to flash the new version, and wont say when they will. Im hoping the xda community will extract it and help us out).

Toshiba have dropped the ball on this one. IM even thinking of defecting to Symbian (the E90 looks nice!)

(Keeping the device for now, as the high res screen is kinda addictive, but its going as SOON as there is a vga 3g HSPDA device on the market.)

DO NOT BUY THE G900 PEOPLE.

g

Edited August 13, 2007 by ripnet

[Guest Confucious]

Hmmm - most of those problems sound like they could be fixed with a ROM update, sounds like a typical rush the device out and let the users do the Beta.

If (and I admit it's a big if) Tosh do release a ROM that fixes most/ all of those problems, what's the device itself like?

[Guest ripnet]

Hmmm - most of those problems sound like they could be fixed with a ROM update, sounds like a typical rush the device out and let the users do the Beta.

If (and I admit it's a big if) Tosh do release a ROM that fixes most/ all of those problems, what's the device itself like?

The device itself is very, very nice (except the sunlight / black screen issue), its well designed, sits nicely in my hand, the buttons are very ergonomic (they have lips and curves in exactly the right places to make using it without looking nice, if you know what I mean).

The slide is /much/ nicer than the hermes, the keyboard has shaped keys that are much better than the hermes, possibly as good as the wizard i had before it. (if only WM6 could keep up with my typing - definately a software issue, and remote desktop can keep up, and typing is a pleasure without the 'lag' you get, even during texting)

Its enough to make you cry that they 'forgot' to do the software side of it.

If (and yes its a big if) Tosh fix even the most annoying 4 'features' (ie, battery life, radio performance, stability, earpiece volume) it would be a killer phone, and my other winges would be insignificent....

I read somewhere that the universal started out with problems like this (including weak radio and battery life being s**t), but rom updates fixed it...

Not sure how good Tosh are at rom updates, but we know an updated rom exists, and is being shipped on newer devices. I also remember back in the day, Tosh was one of the only manufactures to 'bother' releasing the second edition of windows mobile on their E800... that was a major factor in my decision to go Tosh this time...

/regret purchase

(ps. Has anyone hacked the universal to enable HSPDA? i understand its just a software upgrade over normal 3g - that might be the answer, even tho its years old, its a nice device)

g