Royal Excelsior 384kb memory touch sreeen organizer, 6-line backlit display, PC sync software

by Royal

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 4 x 2.8 x 0.5 inches ; 3.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005MJUZ
• Item model number: 14517V
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #4 in Electronics > Office Electronics > Electronic Organizers
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1999

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Royal's Excelsior is a versatile and portable solution for your personal organization needs. Its 384 KB memory handles a telephone directory, calendar, scheduler, memo, clock, and event manager all packed into a compact clamshell design. The QWERTY keyboard layout has a separate numeric keypad to make data entry and retrieval quick and easy. The easy-to-read backlit LCD display can show up to 6 lines of 20 characters each so you don't have to strain your eyes at all. PC Link software and a transfer cable are included for data synchronization with a PC and Internet.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars NOT recommended, December 13, 2001

By 

Mark Snegg (Boone, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Royal Excelsior 384kb memory touch sreeen organizer, 6-line backlit display, PC sync software (Office Product)

I didn't have very high expectations when I bought this organizer. After all, you get what you pay for and I was only looking for something very basic. However, at the very least, I expected it to be usable. It wasn't, for two reasons: 1) A poor quality display, and 2) Bad and amateurish software both in the organizer itself, and in the the PC program which accompanies it.

The photos of the organizer don't show the actual display. What you are see is the pull-off plastic sheet over the display. I spent a long time messing around with the contrast control to try to find a usable setting, but I wasn't able to. The back-lighting is almost useless. The display is just not easily visible in normal lighting, either in the day or at night. (And by the way, I have no difficulty reading the LCD displays of even small, cheap calculators, in any light.)

Navigation and data entry is idiosyncratic and difficult. I was always wondering whether to press 'up', 'down', 'left', 'right', 'Prog', 'Edit', or 'Ok'. It seems to vary from one function to another, pretty much at random.

And speaking as a professional software developer for many years, I must say that the Organizer Link program that comes with it looks as though it was written by the CEO's kid nephew. After trying unsuccessfully for a while to get the organizer to link to the PC, I consulted the troubleshooting guide. It says (and this is a direct quote), "Running MS Office Taskbar, the Lotus Taskbar, the Corel WordPerfect Taskbar, PC Tools CrashGuard, Nuts & Bolts or any anti-virus TSR will cause unusual problems with Organizer Link."

From their notes, I realized that probably the only way I would be able to get it to work would be to disable my modem, reboot, sychronize the data, enable the modem, and reboot again. I would have to repeat this process each time I wanted to transfer data. The troubleshooting document consists of 900 lines of detailed instructions, and its suggestions are often drastic, like changing system settings which would affect other applications, creating new hardware profiles, and disabling your mouse. (I'm not joking! I only wish I was...)

At this point I gave up, uninstalled the software, put the organizer in the trash can, and went back to carrying a notebook and pen in my pocket. That works just fine.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Didn't meet expectations at all, October 16, 2001

By 

Steve (Rockford, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Royal Excelsior 384kb memory touch sreeen organizer, 6-line backlit display, PC sync software (Office Product)

Just to make it clear for everyone, despite what the enclosure looks like, this thing is -nothing- like a palm, and doesn't even really fit in the same category.
For anyone who has seen those little cheap data organizers with the "chicklet" keypads and the 4-6 line text displays, that's what this is, repackaged into a prettier case and given a semi-touch screen rather than the keypad.
Immediately after taking it out of the package I had doubts - the screen (which is hidden behind a "demo sticker" before purchase) has visible lines running through it, the "wiring" for the touch screen. Bothered me at first, but I didn't notice it much after a little bit of use.
The touch-pad also took some getting used to - so they could save money on the display they have letters and numbers side-by-side under the same touch-sensitive area rather than pixelizing them and having them occupy the same space - as a result, you can hit numbers straight-on with your stylus and they work, but letters you have to hit just to the right of the letter. Much frustration ensued before I figured this out and I kept wondering why I kept getting I's when I was pressing O, etc.
It claims to be able to syncronize with Outlook 2000 but I have been unable to do so correctly - after several tries and experimentations I have so far only been able to sync my to-do list and memos - it won't sync calendar events or phone numbers at all. There don't appear to be any options in the sync software as far as what gets synced, and there was absolutely no documentation at all included with the software other than the "help" screens within the program.
I haven't tested functionality with the included PIM software - I suspect it would work better with it, but that's not what I bought it for. Without Outlook sync functionality it's basically useless to me.
Although I was pretty much expecting it with a digital organizer in this price category, the user interface I should mention is pretty non-intuitive as well. On calendar views, each date can have up to three dots next to it - one dot means a to-do item, another dot means an anniversary item, and yet another dot means a schedule item. You have to remember which dot means which. No matter what section you are in, you can only view one item at a time - you don't get a "list" of to-do items, for example, you have to go through them one at a time.
This thing might be OK for someone who doesn't use Outlook and doesn't have much data to go through every day or doesn't need any "at-a-glance" views, and you can get used to the quirky data entry system (I almost think sticking with the chicklet keys would work a lot better) - but pretty much anyone else needs to pass this one by and save up a little more cash towards a "real" PDA.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Royal Excelsior 384kb memory touch sreeen organizer, September 16, 2001

By 

Herman Garza (San Juan, Tx Usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Royal Excelsior 384kb memory touch sreeen organizer, 6-line backlit display, PC sync software (Office Product)

This is great great for people like me that go to school and can't aford a expensive touch screen organizer.It has enough memory hold all your notes.Plus you can back it up with the PC sync software.I recomend this to every one who is in the market loking for a touch sreeen organizer.