(This review is for the Jornada 820 mini laptop.)
A nice write-up Eric (another Reviewer here on Amazon.com). I really enjoyed reading your review.
I agree, the Jornada 820 is a great mini laptop! I think it is physically much better made than almost any of the current batch of netbooks (MSI Wind, Asus Eee, HP Mini, and even the Samsung NC10). Absolutely no flex in the screen or the keyboard. Amazing! What a great keyboard! I have not seen another mini laptop with a 3 mm travel on each key press (all the others are around 2 mm). And the light grey-blue color, textured hard plastic cover, is beautiful and very practical shows no fingerprint marks whatsoever. No cracks even after 10 years. If it only had a full Windows XP functionality and still keeping the fantastic instant-on/instant-off feature! Actually, for my purposes, the one and only real problem with the Jornada 820 is not being able to enter websites with a greater than 40-bit encryption security (i.e., all those that need 128-bit). And web surfing on such a small screen with a very basic browser is not the greatest experience (it gets tiring after a while). But high-speed Internet with a wired Kingston Ethernet IC PC Card (or with a Cisco Aeronet 350 series Wireless LAN Adapter) is very fast. Many people claim that you don't need an anti-virus program to protect your Jornada 820, but this is not correct. You CAN get bugs from surfing the Internet. (Unfortunately, I am not aware of an anti-virus program suitable for the Jornada 820.) If you do encounter a problem, you will need to do a hard-reset.
I've owned about four of these over the years in various used condition (purchased them used from eBay), all with the 32MB RAM upgrade installed, and I still use one of them currently. The only physical problem is that the supporting lid hinge would eventually come loose or break away (always on the right side of the laptop), even though I really try to be gentle on the unit. It still happens after a while if you keep using the machine. Another problem buying a much used unit is that the screen tends to be a bit spotty or blotchy (uneven shadows looks like as if someone smeared it with a cloth or pressed on it too hard). And there can be a little light-bleeding around the edges too. You can really see this when the unit is turned on and you have set a black desktop background color on the screen. But if you can find a really good one (near new condition), you won't have any of these issues with the screen image. Also, the screen is not very bright for outdoors (but more than sufficiently bright indoors).
Other than that, the Jornada 820 is an incredibly great mini laptop with the best keyboard I have ever used (even after years of use, the white bold characters printed on the keys don't wear off at all). It is a very solid, very well constructed, sturdy laptop. Very reliable; you don't get the strange temperament as with "normal" Windows laptops the Jornada 820 always behaves the same; no blue-screen problems here, or applications hanging up with no response. And if ever something does go wrong, it is very easy and quick to either soft or hard reset the unit (if hard-resetting, save your data first and hard-reset only if you want to put everything back to original factory settings). Another plus: your PocketOutlook (i.e., Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, etc.) on the Jornada 820 can be easily synchronized with your desktop's Outlook (using ActiveSync 3.8).
If you like reading books on your mini-laptop, Mobipocket.com has a compatible reader (and lots of books available) for the Jornada 820. Reading printed text on this unit is very easy because the font type and size is adjustable (both in the laptop and also in the Mobipocket reader software).
Why did I give it a 5-Star rating with all the concerns I've listed above? Well, because it is still a fantastic mini laptop and very satisfying to own and use one on a day to day basis. The Standard Rechargeable Battery, even after many years of use, still lasts around six hours. And with the High Capacity Battery, you get OVER ten hours of use on a single charge, and it is the SAME size as the Standard Battery (i.e., it doesn't stick out of the unit in the back or anywhere else)! It is also great to take notes on at a conference, while the Jornada is sitting on your lap or on a table/desk.
I sure wish I could get my hands on a brand new unit!
Ok, let me start off by saying that while this is 'supposed' to be a palmtop unit. It is definitely about the size of a netbook. For those of you who don't know what that is. A netbook is a mini-laptop computer about the size of a big book or sheet of paper.
Now, this computer uses Windows CE, NOT ME, XP, Vista, 2000, or any other big operating system you are used to on a regular desktop. So don't go expecting to put your desktop software on it. It won't work. That said, it is a really simple, almost trimmed down version of 98 or XP.
There is a good bunch of programs and games you can download for the machine. You can even download software so that you can play both music and video on it! Music will play just fine, and video is 'ok' but that really depends on the player I think. I have heard of people playing very old games on this machine like Doom 1 or Quake 1, or even Duke Nukem. Just remember this machine does not have a dedicated 3D chip in it. I think people have told me that Linux runs just fine on here and as such, you can run games through the Linux emulators that way. You will probably have to do some googling to find such stuff though.
The built-in software does exactly what it is advertised to do. The MS Office software is dated (by today's standards as it was made around the time of Office 98/2000) but if you keep in mind that it wasn't made to have all the bells and whistles as a full-sized pc (or netbook for that matter which are actual pc's made mini) it will never fail you. The software is very stable and unless you use up all the memory, hard to crash. The programs boot up fast (within a 1-2 secs) and shut down just as fast. There are key buttons at the top row of the keyboard that allow you to boot up any of the office programs and more! (Such as Internet Explorer (version 4 I believe) an email program(Outlook), recorder that uses the built-in mic, and lastly a button that calls up settings/memory/password)
Just like Windows on your PC, it comes with Solitaire built in. It has some useful programs such as "Calendar" which has alarms of various but simple kind. It gets pretty loud just to warn you if you crank up the volume. Also, on the cover of the unit, there is a small light that when one of your alarms go off (audible or not, there is that option) will flash until you A) Press it down which turns off the flashing or B) open the lid and turn it off by canceling it that way as well.
Since it has a built-in 56k modem (Sorry, no wi-fi... before that time) it also has software for connecting to network, terminals and yes, even faxing.
It has built-in accessories such as a calculator, inkwriter (not sure if all have this as it allows you to take visual notes and draw your notes with the touchpad), voice recorder, and a world clock.
There is Powerpoint on here but it is quite simplistic. Mainly used to make quick, easy stuff or for showing off ones already made via the use of the VGA port that it has in the back.
You can chose to print through a number of ways. One way is through the infrared port, a cable, network, or just upload it to a real PC and print from there(My preferred method).
There is NO hard drive so even if you drop this thing, you can't lose data on it. Think of it like dropping your usb flashdrive. Nothing will be lost. The only way you can lose data is if it loses power from both the main batteries AND the backup batteries (easily found and replaceable 2032 cell batteries. I found some at Walgreens just last week.) As for the main batteries, they last a really, really, really, really long time! They last like 10-12 hours on continuous run. Turned off, they will last like a couple of months. On the front of it by the Jornada name (which you can see when the lid is closed) is a small light that tells you the battery's status when you plug in the charging cord. Green=Fully charged(12-10 hours of battery, Yellow=not full (8-2 hours of battery left), Red=Really low!(2 OR LESS hours of battery, you would probably be getting battery alerts at this point on your screen)
If you really worry about losing your data, just buy yourself a compact flash memory card. There is a card slot for it on the right side of the computer. The left side has a standard pcmcia card slot which you can use for expanding it's capabilities and memory storage as well.
The touchpad is recessed but even still, if you're not careful you will find yourself touching it with your thumb every once in a while. The buttons are a soft-firm and audible clicks can be heard.
Now for the one thing I'm sure you're all wondering about. The screen. The colors are good and I think shows the usual thousands of colors you'd expect from your own monitor. The brightness is good for indoors or outdoors although I recommend that outdoors you don't try to "out-bright" the sun. Instead, use the sun's brightness FOR you by turning down the brightness. I think you'll be surprised at how well that works and it'll save you battery life.
The keyboard is about 78% of a full sized one but that didn't matter to me because they somehow made it easy enough for me to type fast with all 5 fingers with little more having to place my hands closer than usual. The arrow keys are fine and the PGUP,PGDN, HOME, END keys are easily available on it through the Alt key. My only gripe was that the backspace delete key was only 15% bigger than the rest of the keys. Still it wasn't hard to adjust once I was aware of it and even if I accidentally hit the On/Off button (since the backspace delete key was right below that button) all I had to do was hit the On key again and I was back in business. Hitting the On/Off key doesn't really turn off the machine. It just turns off the screen and puts what you were working on in 'standby' so you NEVER have to worry about losing your data just because you hit that button. Try doing *that* on a netbook or laptop. Impossible! Your data will always be available quickly as a press of the on/off button and you won't ever have to 'wait' for any booting up. In fact with a brand new computer, the longest thing you'll spend about it is probably either the personalization (which you can skip) or the battery charging for the first time use! :)
That just about covers it and I just want to say that this machine is very useful, extremely light(I've known books that were heavier), and tougher than it looks(though this is not permission to just treat it like a basketball either). I only took off one star for just one thing I didn't like. It didn't have mic in/headphone out ports so I couldn't hook up a better mic for recording OR headphones for private music/movie listening. Which I found odd since at least the Jornada 728 has headphone ports.
If you're going to be using this machine for writing novels with Word, scheduling, keeping track of your finances in Excel, or any of the other programs like Outlook, Access, Powerpoint or whatever you end up putting on here and want it to be something that can fit in your backpack/purse/folder... and want HUGE battery life that no laptop/netbook can offer you. This will be exactly what you want. :)
Buy HP Jornada 820 - Handheld - Windows CE H/PC Pro - 8.2" color CSTN ( 640 x 480 ) Now
Hewlett Packard Jornada 720 Handheld PC
I bought this to write my next novel DHYANA AND THE ART OF BICYCLE MAINTENANCE a wonderful para-notebook that lies between a full fledged laptop and a PDA this beats (and is more fun to use) than a Quickpad (which I also own). Comes with a USB and CF slot to transfer data to/from the Mother Ship.
Read Best Reviews of HP Jornada 820 - Handheld - Windows CE H/PC Pro - 8.2" color CSTN ( 640 x 480 ) Here
