iPAQ 3900 First Look21 July 2002 "Let me look on you... with my own eyes..." Just got my first hands-on with the new XScale iPAQ 3975. I have to admit, I'm darn impressed. I'm highly tempted to buy one-- but not today-- as my next device. It's that good. The first thing I noticed, predictably, was the screen. This thing is frickin' gorgeous. As everyone and their dog knows by now, the 3900 series uses a backlit transflective screen rather than the sidelit reflective screen used by all other current Pocket PCs. The difference this makes in screen clarity is dramatic and stunning. The screen is far brighter than any reflective screen I've seen, and it's lit perfectly evenly, with no shadows or dim areas. I spent a few seconds turning the device in my hand until I realized I was looking for the "sidelight glare" that simply doesn't exist on this model. No more blinding the person to your right on an airplane! My regular readers are probably thinking, "So what, tell us something we don't know." Well, I'll tell you this. Given Compaq's track record with ClearType in the past, I was apprehensive as I fired up Microsoft Reader. It doesn't matter how beautiful the screen is if I get a headache reading blurry text. I'm pleased to announce that the iPAQ 3975 has none of the ClearType issues that plagued its predecessors. ClearType text is clean and dark. It seems a tad fuzzier than text on my Jornada, but that could be just my subjective bias. I should note that the iPAQ, unlike many other Pocket PCs, still does not have a checkbox under the Screen Settings applet to enable ClearType system-wide, so if you want it in Pocket Word, for example, you'll have to use a registry hack like RegKing 2002 to enable this. I mentioned that the screen was brighter than any of the sidelight reflective Pocket PC screens. It's on par with the HAST screens of the Casio E-125 and EM-500. And it has one thing that I haven't seen any Pocket PC do yet (I haven't seen the LOOX) that I found somewhat amazing. Like most Pocket PCs these days, the 3975 includes an ambient light sensor. On most Pocket PCs-- including previous iPAQs-- this sensor turns the sidelight on or off based on whether the ambient light was sufficient to see the screen without the sidelight, thus allowing the device to conserve precious battery life. When the light was on, it was set to whatever the user had determined was an acceptable level. The iPAQ 3975's light sensor takes this a step further. When the backlight is set to "Auto," not only does the device turn the backlight on and off based on the amount of ambient light, but it also seems to adjust the brightness of the backlight while it's on. I noticed the brightness of the screen change as I tilted it in my hand, getting dimmer the more I tilted the device towards a strong light source. I haven't read anything about this feature, so I suppose I could be imagining things, but if it's really adjusting the strength of the backlight according to ambient light levels, this could help the iPAQ 3975 be one of the most power-frugal Pocket PCs yet. The screen, and more importantly the sidelight, are the biggest power drains on mobile devices. While I didn't have the opportunity to take the device outside, I did get a good look at it with the sidelight completely off. With no backlighting at all, the screen seemed just as readable as my reflective-screened Jornada. This screen really does seem like it will be as good as a backlit transmissive screen indoors and as good as a reflective screen outdoors. Power management on the whole seems much improved in the XScale-generation iPAQs. The Power screen registers individual percentages, for accurate reporting (the 100, 75, 50 and 25% increments on the Jornada drive me nuts) and early analysis indicates that although the 3975's battery isn't any bigger than the battery in the 3800 series, battery life on the 3975 is much better, on par with the Jornada, the previous battery king of the hill. The backup software on the iPAQ 3975 is much improved. Like Sprite Backup-- upon which, I hear, it is based-- the iPAQ's backup program allows you to selectively choose exactly what the backup, what to restore, whether to compress the backup file or not, etc. Very cool. Remember, your PDA is only as good as your most recent backup. Unlike the iPAQ 3800 series, the 3975 has a real SDIO slot. Not only can the SD slot on the 3975 use all the great SDIO cards like modems and NICs that don't exist yet, but it has a 4-bit data bus, unlike the 1-bit bus on an MMC slot. This should allow the 3975 to achieve very nearly Compact Flash transfer speeds. Pop a 512MB SD card in that bad boy and the $99 Compact Flash Plus Pak really becomes superfluous. That's not to say that the iPAQ doesn't have a serious advantage when it comes to accessories. Because the iPAQ is still by far the dominant Pocket PC line, and the 3900 series is externally identical to the 3800 series, then the 3900 hits the streets with a pre-filled channel of accessories just waiting for it. All the sleeves-- including a nifty digital camera-- all the keyboards, all the cases, basically anything designed to work with the 3800 series will work with the 3900 series as well. Even better, some accessories, like the aforementioned Plus Paks, that have proven problematic on the 3800 series seem to work flawlessly with the 3900s. The iPAQ 3900 series currently features two models, the 3955 and 3975. Both come with XScale CPUs, 64MB of RAM, transflective screens, etc. The only difference between them is that the 3975 is $100 more expensive, includes internal Bluetooth (rather well-implemented, btw) and has 48MB of Flash instead of 32MB. Which brings me to the only real downside. The iPAQ 3900 series is frickin' expensive. The 3955 retails for $650, and the 3975 is $750. That's a lot of money for a PDA, regardless what I said about the price of mobility. Is the price worth it for you? That depends. Honestly, as great as some of the new features are, the devices aren't much faster than the 3800 series, and I doubt the extras they do include are worth an extra couple hundred bucks. It's an "early adopter geek status symbol" for now, but this could be a great buy next quarter when the price comes down a bit. Happy holidays! Jeff Kirvin
|