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Originally posted by antony.steele
Hi!
I am a former Psion Series 5MX user, and the Psions recent impact with a stone floor has made me look at the new X3i.
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I am an erstwhile Revo and 5Mx user as well (my 5mx had the dreaded screen cable problem resulting in horizontal lines).
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For example:
What use is a "week-view" in Calender if it doesn't show you what you are doing without you having to selectively click on each event!
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You might want to try out the third-party calendar apps
Pocket Informant or
Agenda Fusion. Both have excellent calendaring capabilities.
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How can I get PocketExcel to draw graphs of my data?
Or how about resizing the screen to fit a few more rows and columns in?
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For resizing - remember that you are comparing a 240 x 320 pixel device with a 640 x 240. But PExcel does have a limited zoom function that can let you display more cells. There are also third-party apps that can let you change the resolution of the device, though I've never had good luck with them when I've tried them.
As for Excel graphics, Developer One also has a graphing app called
Autograph. And there is a third-party spreadsheet app called
SpreadCE that I believe does graphing.
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On my Psion I would have three (but could have unlimited) Contact address books. (1) home use, (2) business use, (3) the company database. The latter has 22,000 records in it - a 4MB file in a Psion. How can I replicate the same on a PocketPC? There is no way that I want to merge all three together!
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Unfortunately the PPC supports only a single contacts book. You can categorize them for filtering purposes, though. But 22,000 records - whew! - I've never tried having a contacts book that big.
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The company database is provided in CSV format each week or two, and the Psion would readily import the data into a new database whenever I downloaded it.
I can not see how to import any data into the X3 to form a new address book.
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If I am not mistaken, Outlook 2002 allows you to import contacts vis CSV that can then be synchronized.
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I presume that there are some 3rd party apps out there that I can use instead - but it is a great shame that my first impressions show that modern applications running on a 400Mhz PocketPC do not even get close to 8 year old apps running on a fully multi-tasking operatign system 34Mhz Psion!
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There is no doubt that Word and Sheet on Psion's EPOC are the greatest PDA apps of their category around. Textmaker for PPC is very nice as well, though it's pricey...
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Surely the X3i is more capeable of running the full blown Microsoft Excel than some users PC's are!! Doesn't seem fair that the X3i only gets to run a version of Excel that someone put together using what could only be a very few lines of code!
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My guess has always been that Microsoft does not want to provide a replacement for desktop apps that can be readily carried on a CE based device - they want you to license a desktop Office license instead.
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I am so fond of the X3i hardware - I'd love it to be a replacement for the Psion Series 5MX -- but I so disappointed with the built-in apps. Maybe I'll have to buy a 2nd hand Psion on Ebay and re-visit PocketPC in a year or twos time?
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I really think it would be cheaper and you'd be better off with third party PPC apps with an external keyboard actually. YMMV, but I am far happier with my Axim than I was with the 5mx, if only because I can carry the device itself easily in a pocket without carrying the keyboard - it is far more transportable - and, of course, it's in color.
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PS. Psion Series 5 has a great keyboard, and 2x AA batteries provide 6 weeks of power! The b&w screen saves lots of batteries, but I'd gladly change the batteries daily if I could have a Psion with a screen as good as the X3 has.
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To be fair, the six weeks of power is equal to about 25 hours of active use, and that was without ever using the backlight, in my experience. If Psion made a color screened 5mx, though, I might not have switched back to CE...
And I use my PDAs a lot and never have any battery issues at all. I have it recharge whenever it is cradled (which I do about twice daily each workday) and that works for me, even on weekends.
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PSS. The Psion operating system NEVER needs rebooting, and I really mean never. It's rock solid. The impact with the floor left me with a shattered screen, which is still visiable - but no longer touch sensitive - so I can now only use the keyboard.
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All this rebooting talk... I only reset my PPC when I run a backup (and it tells me to) or when I install a new app that requires a reset. I agree on the 5mx - it was rock solid stable. It also was truly multi-tasking, multi-threaded in that you could have two word processing documents open at once, for example.
As I mentioned before, the 5mx had what I believe to be a design problem. The screen was connected with a ribbon cable that was fairly fragile and could easily be broken if the device were opened and closed a lot. My 5mx lasted only 5 months.
It also had no AvantGo, which I really missed while I was using the Psions....
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Please help me convert from Psion Series 5MX to XP3i!
