Great display, poor OS (HP Jornada 420)

Name: Buzz

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Product:	HP Jornada 420
Date:	23/06/00 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great display

Disadvantages: Bulky, slow, unreliable OS

When I first saw the display on the HP Jornada I was sold. OK, so I was given it free at a Microsoft conference, co-sponsored by HP. They also gave me a scale model of Damon Hill's HP sponsored Jordan F1 car. The fact that Damon's car is still on my desk but the Jornada has been replaced by a Palm V speaks volumes!

The quality of the display really is outstanding but it has it's drawbacks, the main one being the size needed to accomodate it. It just doesn't fit easily into pocket. As a result, I always used to carry it around in my bag - my computer bag. The one I use to carry around my notebook PC. And what was on my notebook? All the information that I had on the Jornada! The only benefit was that the Jornada was quicker to turn on. Otherwise it had all the disadvantages of a Microsoft operating system, slow, unreliable and needed resetting regularly.

One of the other features that had appealed to me was the headphone socket. I downloaded some MP3 software and thought I had a ready made player but the quality was very poor with a lot of distortion and crackle. Perhaps mine was just faulty, I don't know.

The Windows CE operating system was very slow and tended to crash once I had loaded a few third party applications on it, although Microsoft have now launched an updated version and I can't say if this is an improvement or not.

Personally, I would go for Palm OS devices every time. They are quicker, more reliable and have a much greater selection of software applications available.

Summary: