My Most Useful (and Hardest Working) Gadget

The Skinny: Ultralight workhorse with good keyboard and functional color screen, instant boot up time, upgradeable ROM board (stores OS and default apps), no mechanical parts to wear out or crash (so should last a good while and survive light abuse).

*new section: ALTERNATIVE OSes added* I've reorganized the Linux and BSD info and created a new section below.

More?: cheap (going for @ $300USD on EBay), smallish academic-textbook-sized footprint, 10+ hours of power on a single charge, built in 33.6 modem, expandable: 1 PCMCIA type3 and 1 CompactFlash slot, MS Pocket Office app suite included, new version of ActiveSync is easy sync-ing goodness (at least from windoze).

The Bad: discontinued product, Windows CE (the included Pocket Office Pro may not cut it with you), I'm not certain that CE has the full support of M$ (imagining M$ engineers secretly using PalmPilots)

The Short Version: I love this machine. It certainly is one Sexy Piece of Tech. I read on MSNBC (a sorta rave review combined with an exclamatory "at this price you must buy now") that IBM was discontinuing the product, and so had slashed the MSRP to around $300USD. I found z50s on ecost.com at the new price and am still struck with whatta deal it was. But our relationship has matured and there has been some weirdness (cue ominous music)...

The Long Version...

SECTIONS:
* HOW I USE MY z50
* ACTIVESYNC 3.0 DOES NOT SUCK
* BETTER THAN A LAPTOP?
* WORSE THAN A PALMPILOT?
* VERDICT
* WEIRDNESS
* ALTERNATIVE OSes
* FINAL WORDS

HOW I USE MY z50
This is my road machine. I'm a journal-keeping computer guy type guy, and if I didn't write it down, I'm probably not gonna remember it. If it's not stored electronically or in my wallet, I'm probably not gonna find it. This is one of three PCs on and under my desk. Ain't gonna replace my more powerful PCs (how would I play Quake 3?), but it's hella portable and has replaced Laptop as #1 Business Associate in Expeditions Away From Desk.

That MSNBC article I (andalotta others) included a story about a journalist friend of the author using a z50 because it was easier to deal with than The Laptop conventionally used for whacking out copy on the job.

With the z50: open it, type it out, plug into a phone line and send a Pocket Word file to Intergalactic HQ at 33.6, charge it overnight, no fuss no muss, and no extra batteries. Kick @$$, Live Fast.

I have nothing against paper, but I'm faster with a keyboard than a pen, and it's nice having my contacts and task list handy. The email app is a bit underdeveloped imho*, no client-side rules or anything fancy like that, but if I was plugged into an Exchange Server (or something else that could give me server-side message handling) I think it would be more useful (hmm where's my BackOffice eval kit?).

The built-in 33.6 modem works (not alot to be said about 33.6), and I sometimes use the included voice recorder program but I'm not big on speaking to machines.

That is not the case with the z50, which has 16MB of available NVRAM storage space, which is plenty for


ACTIVESYNC 3.0 DOES NOT SUCK:
M$'s new version of their sync software, ActiveSync 3.0, synchronizing data between my z50 and my Win2k desktop is easy++, on par with the PalmOS software, and lightyears ahead of the previous version. No more of this configuring RAS Servers and other assorted stupid rubbish trying to get CE to sync with a NT/win2k PC.


BETTER THAN A LAPTOP?:
Boots up instantly, battery life contest is no contest, is smaller, and much lighter. And it's hard to open a laptop all the way in coach when someone's leaning their seat back all the way. The z50 doesn't need a whole lot of room.

The z50 is at the upper limit of what I consider truly portable (I'll concede my laptop *is* dictionary portable, but it's a bit much when I just want to take a few technical journals to a coffeeshop and do some notetaking. It's also can be a bit embarrassing when making clients wait while I hunt for a power outlet.

Also, the z50 battery is a quality smart Li-Ion job, which I appreciate now having shopped for replacement batteries for Laptop. I found IBM's included battery conditioning utility particularly nice.

But I can run games on my Laptop. Currently playing: The Sims. Pushing the envelope on the z50 means opening Los Angeles maps (there are 2! how lame!) into M$ Streets and trying to scroll fast. Currently looking at CE chess progs which I might discuss in a later update...


WORSE THAN A PALMPILOT?:
PalmPilot users who are used to a handheld gadget may not like the size of the z50. I know people who are like, "if it doesn't fit in my shirt pocket I'm not gonna carry it." Also, if you're happy with your PalmPilot, I know how it is with house Palm users. I've been witness to some getting a little too attached, freakishly loyal even. But then again, there are those Palm users who immediately appreciated the keyboard and bigger screen on my z50, y'know, the heretics who might consider running any M$ OS.


VERDICT:
smaller + lighter = better gadgets. But it doesn't fit in a shirt pocket. I find my E-10 very usable, and I saw no pressing reason to replace it with a Pilot (until the Palm Vs came out, but by then, everything was better than an E-10, and I no longer worked with Casio), but I yearned for a keyboard and bigger screen and maybe a serial port for those times I need to reprogram a router or whatever else I might want to have serial access to ;) so I purchased a laptop (K6-2 300, 64MB). Then a lady friend of mine showed me hers (z50, that is) that she used to keep tabs on her patients and any other bits of info she needed to collect for her hospital job, and I fell in love (with the gadget). "How much?", I asked, but twas too much, then. But now, they're cheap cheap cheap! hoo-yah.

For those moments of spontaneous inspiration (when? few and far between for me, hehe), or whenever I'd like a keyboard and screen close by to take notes with, my z50 feels like ultra-portable laptop and not the oversized PDA that it secretly is. Pocket Office Pro is very usable here, adequate imho* for anyone requiring moderate application functionality (yeah, you, with the Iridium phone and Palm VII and portable LCD projector, you'll Close Jack with a Pocket PowerPoint presentation because it sux, so look elsewhere, but then again, it does support BMPs), but inadequate for those unwilling to sacrifice app functionality found on full-powered portable computing devices.


WEIRDNESS:
About a month after I purchased my z50, I noticed some of the keys were not working. I could tab and arrow around, but not type letters. I toggled the power off and back on, and everything was fine. Then I attached the AC adapter, and the screen fritzed out, then froze. It was completely unresponsive (Help! Is there an EE in the house?), the power button didn't even work. There were a couple things I hadn't synced yet, so I wanted to get back into the system without having to reset (reloads the original factory configuration from ROM, wiping everything in NVRAM).

It remained on while I left the house for the day wondering if it would come back before the batteries ran out. When I checked it later it had apparently shut off. I powered it on and watched it reset itself and wipe the NVRAM. Yay. Microsoft quality. I

I'm assuming it's M$'s fault because IBM ware I've dealt with from AS/400s running AIX to Thinkpads to sticks of RAM to HDDs has consistently been top notch (OS/2 Warp should also get a nod), and M$'s wares can be buggy and intractably weirdly behaving depending on your setup, sometimes without mucho TLC and patching action (NT SP6a, anyone?).


ALTERNATIVE OSes: (*added 3-29-2000)
I originally wrote something about a FreeBSD replacement ROM chip. Sorry, I was tripping. I went back to the slashdot article about the z50 and there is no such thing. So, I've rewritten the info about *NIX on the z50:

NetBSD/hpcmips: The processor inside a z50 is a MIPS-based 133MHz NEC VR4121 processor. This site is home to a successful MIPS port of NetBSD (a UNIX-type network OS) that supports the 4121. It is not a ROM upgrade. NetBSD is installed on the z50 with the aid of a special bootloader program. Everything you need to get underway is at:
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/hpcmips/

Linux VR: This group builds on the work of people porting Linux to the MIPS platform and focuses on support the VR series of chips, which the z50 uses. Their approach to getting Linux running on the z50 is similar to the way you get NetBSD installed. My impression was that it might be a bit early to think about running Linux on the z50, but don't take my word for it and check it out:
http://linux-vr.org/


FINAL WORDS:
As for me, I'm willing to give M$ another chance and stick with CE, but if this thing bugs out again I'll be Major P!ssed. I'm now more careful about powering down before plugging it into AC, but I'm not totally convinced that AC had anything to do with aforementioned spaz attack. In any case, going gently with the juice can't hurt. Also, I'm more religious about The Sync, lest I am destined to again lose data.

I'm forgiving because ActiveSync happily works well, now, and because my alternatives are not inviting. I will certainly be supporting efforts to bring OS alternatives to my z50. Meanwhile, there are rumblings emanating from Redmond that CE is not gaining enough traction in the embedded OS market to be interesting to the big brains in power. Something about embedded NT... refocusing on CarPC... <sigh>.

Win CE is scheduled for an upgrade soon, I've seen screenshots for the new version (albeit only for the handheld PC format)...

!footnotes
*refer to my brief glossary if confused by my use of this common net acronym.
!begin glossary. This glossary is not short, it's concise.
-imho: in my humble opinion
!end glossary. please email me suggestions to the glossary.

Last Updated: 3-29-2000