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Technology/PalmOS Handera 330, (sdf.org), 12/27/2018
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Day two of the eBay Handera 330[1][2]. I'm writing with
Qed, a text editor that natively supports the Handera's
high-resolution screen. It's not free... you either have
to pay a donation to remove the nag screen, or use a
keygen,*or* it appears you can just email the author for a
free registration. If you have the cash, just send the
donation over, it won't hurt.
Anyway, some thoughts about the Handera itself...
Having been an avid user of the III series, I appreciate the
higher resolution and the virtual silk area. The result is a
lot more screen real estate to get your work done in, if you
have the application support you need. The inclusion of the
SD/CF slots means you don't have to worry quite as much
about running out of space, which was a real problem on the
III series (especially the 2mb IIIe.)
The LiON battery has been nice so far. This thing is old, so
I didn't know what to expect, but so far the battery has
held a charge for two full days. It got pretty warm when
charging, but it appears to be working... so far. I realize
that it could be mis-reporting, and it could die any second,
but so far, so good. I'm pleased that this thing came with
backup software, so I don't have to fret too much if power
gets lost. I don't have a sync cable, so I have the option
of transferring programs through beam (from a T3 that does
have a sync cable) or via the SD card. But, a local backup
is even better.
Since I'm being as verbose as usual, you may have guessed
that I am using a keyboard. I have a IIIc in my collection,
and with it a "Palm Portable Keyboard" of the folding
variety (the P10713U.) That means writing is a breeze, as
easy as it would be on the Dana or a laptop.
A few things that I have found annoying so far:
- It's getting harder and harder to find PalmOS software on
the internet. Archive.org is a valuable resource, but even
they don't have everything.
- Apparently, Handera software wasn't ever huge. It's
difficult to find good software that was made for this
screen setup.
- The silk area would pop up the normal Palm keyboard
rather than a keyboard that would use the virtual silk
area. There is an application that fixes this, thankfully.
- The speaker is very, very quiet. This barely matters, as
I don't use this variety of palm for audio anyway.
- The build quality is poor. I recall the Palm III series
being built like tanks; the IIIc that I have certainly is.
This feels quite flimsy .
All of that aside, I'm thrilled to collect this now. I
always wanted one "back in the day," and it's fun to try one
out as a mobile computing history lesson. It will likely end
up a part of my "distraction free writing" tools, primarily
because of the fragile feel of it, but that's as good a fate
as a thing like this could hope for I think!
[1]
gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/tfurrows/phlog/2018/acp_handera330.txt
[2]
gopher://1436.ninja:70/0/Phlog/20181206.post
