TWO broken Series 5's - Now what? (Psion Series 5mx Pro)

Member Name: richardleonard

Product:	Psion Series 5mx Pro
Date:	25/01/01 (543 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great featues

Disadvantages: Quite fragile

I've been a fan of Psion for a long time (at least 6 years). Starting off with a Series 3a I used it all the time and downloaded many great applications from the Internet. After a couple of years Psion brought out the Series 5 which I decided to buy.

The touchscreen was really useful and made navigation so much easier. The drawing tool, although not much practical use was quite a clever utility for playing with, or including your signature in word files, should you wish to!

I used to type quite a few assignments on the reasonably sized keyboard, however, it just wasn't quite big enough to touchtype (which is quite fortunate for me as I can't!). Still, the keys were nice and responsive.

The most useful application for me was the spreadsheet which acted just like Excel.

The screen was big enough to see in most conditions and the backlight incredibly useful, although it did eat batteries and made a strange buzzing sound when it was turned on. Having a power supply was almost essential. On average my batteries only lasted around 8 hours, but my Dad, who also had one managed to get around 15. This seems quite strange as he always left his turned on.

My Dad seemed to have more problems with his Psion than me. The first problem was his pen socket. The spring mechanism decided to fail and this appears to be quite common for the Series 5. After having the unit replaced the next problem occurred.

His screen looked as though the liquid crystal display had broken. Half the screen was visible and the rest did nothing. We worked out that it was probably the contacts where the hinges on the case are, and that there was probably a broken cable. Being out of the guarentee it would apparently cost £100 (I think that's right) or so just to have the screen replaced.

I didn't really use mine much at the time so then I let him use mine.

Within a few months that screen also broke! He d
idn't drop it, snap the hinges or anything you would expect to break the screen, but it didn't work all the same.
It seems an awful lot of money to spend on replacing a screen, when you can't tell if something else is going to fail afterwards.

In the end he bought a Psion Revo and has been pleased withh this. I've had a look at it and there are a few things I don't like.

The screen isn't backlit which I find difficult to see sometimes. The keyboard is also a lot firmer than on the Series 5 which makes it harder to use. I type reasonably quickly and find it difficult with the Revo keyboard, not only because it's smaller.

The docking cradle is a good idea - the Series 5 still has the plug-in cable which has been around since the Series 3.

So anyway, he's happy and I don't have a PDA anymore. I've been considering buying another, but I'm not entirely sure what to buy.

I don't think it'd be a Revo for the reason's stated above, but the Series 5, although good, seems a lot of money for what it is. As far as I can see there are 2 alternatives - 1. A Palm device or 2. A handheld PC.

I'm not sure about either of these at the moment for both features and price. Coming back to the Series 5, whilst I had one I was very pleased with its performance and features, but for £360 it's quite expensive. I'll have to have a look at what other Dooyooers think before I make my mind up on another PDA.

Summary: