Casio Cassiopeia EM-500 Color Pocket PC (Slate Blue)

• Color screen with 240 x 320 display in 65,536 colors
• Includes Microsoft Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, Pocket Money, and Pocket Internet Explorer
• 16 MB of internal RAM, expands up to additional 64 MB with optional MultiMediaCards
• Play MP3 audio files with built-in speaker
• What's in the box: Cassiopeia EM-500, Stylus, USB Cradle, AC Adapter, Lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack, CR2032 lithium battery, Connector cable, Pocket PC User's Guide, Hardware Guide

The Cassiopeia EM-500 looks like a pretty sweet deal. It can do almost anything the E-115 does, and it's smaller and faster. If you compare the EM-500 to the E-115, you'll notice that the E-115 has 32MB of memory, where the EM-500 has 16MB. Also, the EM-500 offers the multimedia card memory system, so memory can be easily expanded.

The EM-500 seems targeted at a younger market, with great multimedia capabilities (MP3, 240 x 320 TFT 65,536 color screen, excellent gamepad).

Its main competitor, the Compaq iPaq, offers more memory and speed, but less colors, and, most importantly perhaps, the keypad of the iPaq cannot register simultaneous clicks, which limits its gameplay capabilities.

If you want a good Pocket PC for both "serious stuff" and games and multimedia, the EM-500 seems the way to go. A fine product by Casio, with more memory I would have given it 5 stars.

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I bought the EM-500 about four months ago. I love the Software that it came with (Microsoft Pocket PC) but since all pocket PCs come with the same software I'm not going to write about how cool the transcriber is and how nice it is to write notes down, and save them.

The things that I don't like about this model are that it doesn't support compact flash. It only supports the Casio micro memory cards which are hard to come by. This also means that you will miss out on all those cool accessories that are compact flash compatible. I also don't like the placement of the IR port (on the right side). If you want to send something, you have to turn it to the right for the IR ports to see each other.

Other than that I really like my EM-500 and I use it all the time for work and personal notes and reminders. I also love reading books on it I can read a book in bed with all the lights out so my wife can sleep.

The one recommendation I would make to all pocket pc buyers is to invest in a screen cover the screen can get scratched very easily and if you want to keep it for a while the scratches will start to add up.

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I love PDA's (and computers in general, for that matter) and this is an excellent device. There was a time when I swore by Palm's pda's, but while Windows CE (now known as Pocket PC) has evolved to near-desktop power, the Palm has remained virtually unchanged. Of the Pocket PC's available, this unit is the best compromise of size and power. It packs a 150mhz cpu (more powerful than the HP Jornada, less than the Ipaq), 16mb of ram, and an amazing screen capable of displaying 16bit color. The Ipaq and HP Jornada can both only do 12-bit color at best. All of that is packed in a comfortable, small device that feels extremely solid in the hand.

While I do believe the EM-500 is probably the best unit available, it does have a few draw-backs. The miserly 16mb of ram is hardly enough... if you buy this make sure to get a 32mb or 64mb memory card to go with it. My other complaints are minimal: lack of hardware volume control, location of IRDA port... but none of these minor issues really impact the usefulness of the unit.

Definitely a great PDA, and well worth the money.

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I bought the EM-500 recently to replace my Handspring Visor. I was always more than happy with the Visor, but wanted to go with a device with a color screen and the Pocket PC operating system. My overall satisfaction has been great, but you really have to know what you're getting yourself into.

Generally speaking, my computer skills are well above average. This has turned out to be a very good thing with the Pocket PC system. I've found it at times more versatile than Palm, at times more familiar (due to the Windowsesque interface), but also frequently frustrating. Because everything's a little more "tweakable" than Palm, you'll find more of a need to get into the details and settings a bit more. If you're comfortable with that, then Pocket PC is for you. If you're looking for simplicity and ease of use, then stick with Palm, even if you're a desktop Windows junkie. Palm is certainly expandable (though arguably not as much as Pocket PC), it's just easier to do so.

A few other things to keep in mind: While the MMC slot allows you additional storage space, it's no help for program memory. Some programs require quite a bit of memory to run (PocketDOOM comes to mind), and if you've stored a lot of stuff on your RAM, then you're out of luck. A 32MB version would've been smart on Casio's part. This brings up another point ... Casio has discontinued the EM-500 line now that the PocketPC 2002 OS is out, so you may want to think about how that might affect you. The EM-500 is NOT upgradeable, and never will be.

That said, my experience with the EM-500 has been great. It's got stereo MP3 playback out of the box, a beautifully rich color screen (though difficult to see out-of-doors), and outstanding expandability. It's given me just about everything the Visor did, and more. Its size (just a tiny bit larger than the Visor) and weight (probably at least twice the weight of the Visor) weren't an issue for me, though you might consider it if you plan to carry this in a pocket. Overall, a great purchase, and I believe the best tradeoff between price and quality on the Pocket PC devices.

It has been in the shop for more than a month now. I guess that means that as of today, it has been away for service for more days than I got to use it in the first place.

I could not keep the screen aligned. When you tap the stylus on the screen, the machine should detect exactly where you tap. You can go through an "alignment" procedure to set the position of the stylus exactly. Unfortunately, the screen would go out of alignment (by one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch) five or six times per day. Every third or fourth day, the screen would go out of alignment by one-half to three-quarters inch.

It did not "drift" out of alignment; it would happen suddenly, in the middle of writing characters, for example. I could see the character being formed directly underneath the stylus, and the very next character would be a quarter-inch above or below the stylus.

So, does this happen to everyone (and everyone else just puts up with it)? I don't know, but I could not get any information from Casio whether this was expected behavior, unusual behavior, a common failure or an unusual failure.

So I shipped it back to Casio factory service in NJ, and cannot find out anything about when (if ever) they will send it back, or if they can fix it or if I'll have to live with it.

I sure wish I had bought an iPaq. Maybe I'll go ahead and order an iPaq; it will probably arrive from backorder before I get the Casio back.