Customer Reviews

Hewlett Packard Jornada 430 Palm-Size PC

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have a Palm V and got tired of squinting at the screen. While its form-factor is very nice, its total lack of multimedia makes me think it is far too expensive for what you get. On the other hand my HP Jornada has a wealth of multimedia features: MP3 player, image processor etc. I only wish HP would figure a way to add streaming video to the product. All in all the HP+CE combo are hard to beat for standard apps (contacts, expenses etc.) with a lot of room for future expansion.

We had a little bit of cash left over and decided to buy the whole software development team PDAs. I decided that because of Microsoft's history of providing support to older Operating Systems (upgrades to WindowsCE had already been offered) that we would go with a WinCE-based product.

With a 240x320 pixel 16 bit color display, 16 MBytes of memory and stereo headphone jack backed-up by a quality MP3 decoder, the Jornada 430se was our new toy!

We stopped carrying paper. No one is late to meetings. No one scrambles for print-outs. No one says "I don't have a copy of that memo in front of me." Tasks/calendars/contact/email are in color, straight from Windows Outlook to your Personal PC. The Jornada's buttons and scroll wheel allow one handed operation, the voice recognition software allows one button operation.

Two bad sides: 1) People used to Palm pilots think it is a little bulky and decry its use of Windows. In my opinion, they are whiners.

2) The HP Jornada 430se runs my life. Now I forget nothing and this bums me out. The Jornada keeps metrics of my uncompleted tasks and I now realize how truly unproductive I am.

3 years ago I was willing to abandon my Mac and get a PC, which proved to be a much more powerful tool. Upon thinking about this, I questioned my allegiance to my palm V and ordered the HP 430se, lured especially by the MP3 player and color screen. What I got was a device that was bigger, much slower, a pain in the a** to navigate through, and the screen froze within minutes after taking it out of the box, and several times therafter. WinCE definately ain't there yet. I rather stick to my palm V and buy a separate mp3/voicerecorder, than deal with a slow, clumpy version of windows in my pocket.

note: give msoft a year- Im sure they'll soon find a way to copy the palms speed and ease of use, while adding the advantage of seamless windows/wireless-internet connectivity.

My 430se died (somewhat) within two days. Just long enough for me to achieve a real respect for its abilities. I miss the MP3 playback, the ability to download recorded books to listen to on trips, the voice-activated contact list, and all the games that can be played... and in case my boss is reading this: the ability to use it as a terminal, the expense tracking, and other productive items.

The screen went dark but I could still use it to do non-visual task like voice-controlled contact manager since I had already entered the data. I'm looking forward to getting my replacement so I can be more productive (and finish that book I started on the plane.)

My opinion is this is a tremendous tool and toy. I am assuming I just got one with a loose display connection, however, I will be religously backing-up all data for quite some time... I should do that anyway.

The Windows CE and color monitor were the key reasons I purchased the Jornada. These features make it seem like a seemless conversion from the Windows based computer that I use everyday. The MP3 player has been a nice feature but keep in mind that downloading 1 song(appx 4.4 MB per song) is about all you can place on the hard drive. In order to have a true replacement for the RIO MP3 player, you will need to buy a storage card and they are not cheap. I purchased an additional 48 MB storage card and it was $199.00. This 48 MB will hold about 10 songs downloaded from the internet (4.4 MB x 10 songs = 44 MB). While the MP3 downloads were free, the $199.00 seems like an expensive way to create a 10 song collection (even if you can change it as many times as you want).

When I started looking at PDA's, I was initially attracted to the Casio and the Jornada because of their color screens and features not found on the Palm machines. Long story short is that ultimately the PDA I bought was a Palm Vx. What was important to me was size, battery life, and functionality. I want a name now! Windows CE is still slow no matter how fast a processor you put in the machine - which kills the battery life in the meantime. If I'm travelling I have my portable computer to do the other things that a CE machine can do. For day to day life, I don't know where I would keep a larger CE device. My Palm Vx has never faltered or skipped a beat, the beam feature is great, there's lots of free software, and it lasts a week on one battery charge even playing Subhunt more than I should. Have you seen avantgo? You can download your news when you hotsync.

My conclusion: If you travel alot and don't carry a portable and you don't mind have to carry a charger with you the CE's may be the way to go. Otherwise save yourself the hassle and get a Palm or a Visor.

I own both the Palm V and the HP 430, I have heard that some people have been having problems with Win Ce, but so far, I have had to reset my Palm more than the Jornada. Ease of use, color screen, compact flash slot, these all make the Jornada much more effective to me. More of a Palmtop than a PDA. The travel cable is much better than a charge cradle for mobile use. I think the Jornada was worth everything I paid for it and more.

I've had the Jornada for about a month now & I'm pretty happy with it. I toyed with having a Palm V & a Rio @ one point & then thought dang, why can't I have it in one unit? After some research I came upon the Casioppeia E-100/105 & the Jornada 430. Well, as the E-105 has become as rare as a sighting of the do-do bird, the 430 was available. History goes from there. I had a Palm III at one point & have since sold it. I haven't looked back since.

Cons: No cradle (although it does come with a sync cable) & no gamepad (ala Casioppeia E-100/105) - no multimedia bundle.

Pros: Built-in MP3 player (from what I understand plays high-quality MP3s as compared to the Casioppeias which can only play medium-quality MP3s) - Great software bundle (in ROM & and on CD-ROM) - voice recognition for contact info.

On the overall, a good solid purchase (at least for the next 2 months when the next cool thing comes along).

The new Jornada 430 and the latest version of the WinCE OS is quite nice. I don't think it will catch on fully until the price comes down, but if you are planning on getting a PDA this is the one. Using this with Microsoft's new ActiveSync software on the desktop is also a big improvement over previous setups. After getting one I find I don't need to carry my TODO list around on paper anymore, save time because my schedule is always with me and I can answer email in meetings (in other words, get real work done). On top of all this, having a color display is great, not to mention enough memory to run real apps if your need calls for it. I don't think the Palm does either of these.

I gave up my Palm Pilot Pro (6 oz., 1 MB RAM, 16 MHz CPU, monochrome screen) to move to this newer generation device (8 oz., 16 MB RAM, 131 Mhz CPU, color screen). It comes with Outlook 2000 and synchronizes flawlessly with that and Windows 98 functions. Interestingly, its speed seems about the same as the Palm; however, it can play MP3 files, record and play .wav files, play Audible files, and interface with Word. It's slightly bulkier than the Palm Pro and considerably more so than a Palm V. If you're looking for lots of bells and whistles, the Jornada is great. If you need some basic functions in a smaller package, look at the Palm V.