Toshiba e750 Pocket PC

The first thing I would like to point out is that we have many Toshiba notebooks here, and are quite happy with them.

I used to have a Casio E115 and this PDA has been a dream to use compared to the Casio, and at the time I was happy with the Casio.

I originally bought a an E740 figuring I would save a little cash and get the one everyone was mad about. (This is the unit that they wouldn't upgrade to WM2003, and basically stopped supporting because of problems) And originally I did have some of the problems with mine, but after applying the updates and such things were fine.

I soon discovered (after about 2 weeks) that I needed one of the features that WM2003 offers for wireless email and out internal network. We did try to get the E740 working but no go, and rather than taking a chance on something else from HP (Which I like) we decided to get the E750 like others at work have.

I still can not respect Toshiba for the way they handled the E740 upgrade path, but I am happy with the E750. Speed quality and some of the other small issues of the E740 have been mostly addressed and the unit has worked flawlessly for me since I bought it.

NOW keep in mind with pocket PC's you will from time to time have to "soft reset" the device which will basically do the same thing as a system reset on Windows 98 - XP.

What people dread doing are Hard Resets, which essentially FORMAT the unit. One of my favorite features on the E750 is the "FlashRom" storage. Essentially what this does is give me an onboard "backup" area that will not be erased even during a "Hard Reset". Now the machine hasn't needed one, but I'm one that likes to see proof, so recently I found a utility to try that does backups (Not sure if it will work with onboard stuff or what was even included originally any more... :), but the software I tried worked great (and was fast too!) Backed up about 24megs of onboard stuff and 160 Megs of SD Card content into a 20 meg file (IN about 2-3 mins). I figured that this would never restore everything, but I held my breath, and did the hard reset and whala everything was there.

Pretty Impressed.

The dual slots on the unit are VERY nice for expandability, screen quality is very nice. My only complaint so to speak is that there seems to be a slight delay on the buttons in some games. But I don't know if it is the Toshy or the games.

People wondering about Pocket PC vs Palm Pilot software really do not have much to worry about as there are tons of programs out there for the Pocket PC and more added every day.

Pretty much anything you could imagine for the Palm is also available for the Pocket PC and in my opinion most are better simply because of screen size.

There were 7 people in this office with Palm Pilots, IIIC's , Tungstens, etc. Now there are 9 with Pocket PC's all either Toshiba's or IPAQ's (Not all wireless, but by the end of the year I think everyone will of changed, one guy is currently looking at the latest IPAQs and thing on giving them a go.($150 or something)

Key Points that I think the PPC Platform has over Palm

1) Windows like feel & Familiarity (Lower learning curve) - My 9 year uses my all the time

2) Larger Screen - Larger useable screen because the "character recognition" hides when not in use. This means you have more room on the display to work with. (How many people still use 14" monitors?)

3) Better input method - I like the little pop up keyboard, others like calligrapher or transcriber for handwriting recognition, others use thumb key boards. The point is you can set it up to your fancy, there are also full screen keyboards available and of course wireless external units.

4) We had fought with tying to figure out how to do a few things on a Palm Tungsten W for some time (Mostly with Email, PowerPoint's, and Excel files) and finally sold it on eBay for an IPAQ. We have been able to get what we need set up on each of the pocket PC within minutes, every time.

5) Palm use of storage cards is not great.

** Reliability is about the same as the Palm all units, eventually have to be hard reset for one reason or another. Both can restore all of their programs and synch settings pretty easily between backups or re-synching, etc.

MY advice is to go to the Best Buy, Future Shop, Staples, etc. store in your area and look at the models that the are offering.

Play with it, see what YOU like. IPAQs are a bit more but support is better from what I have seen.

Some people like the Palms some hate them, some hate Toshiba now because of the E740, which is understandable. But if you shop around you could probably find a E750 or E755 (Same unit E755 comes with Photo software or something, but hardware is the same) for a great price. E740 may even be worth looking at as it is similar, but do not hold your breath on a 2003 upgrade. I never had mine long enough to see any major problems and have only had the E750 for about 2.5 months, but so far I'm very happy.