The key to the functionality of the Pulse is manifold, but it can be counted down to the infrared camera perched under the nib (I’m old, so look it up), the voice recording capabilities, and the special paper the pens use in order to work their magic. Now don’t go groaning over the fact that you have to buy special paper. Have you seen what a simple notepad costs at Barnes & Noble these days? Shocking to the point where you’ll think that paying $20 for a 200 sheet notebook which enables the power of the Pulse is a steal and a half. Combine that with the fact that the most recent Windows version of the software can print blank pages, and you’re on easy street.

So, how do the camera, recorder, and paper work to together to make this powerful combo I speak of? That’s a more complicated question, but there are answers. I am, however, going to quickly describe the Pulse and what the package comes with. First, there’s the pen, of course. Its a large pen, but not much larger than the big, thick, expensive pens which you can buy that don’t do anything the Pulse does. In the box there is a 200 page starter notebook (8.5″ x 11″, college ruled), a nicely small and portable USB magnetic dock, a pair of stereo headphones with a microphone in each earpiece, a lanyard for the headphones, a set of replacement ink cartridges and a stylus tip (nice touch!), and a crappy faux leather case (What happened!?). Take a gander at the image below:

The pen has a display embedded in the side of it. Nicely, there are several options for how you can use the pen, and one of them is to change the orientation of the screen depending on what hand you use (I’m a lefty… deal). That grill you can see under the screen is a speaker and on the top end of the pen is the headphone/microphone jack. I’ll get to the headphones later. They’re super neat. 

Now, whenever the pen is on and you write on the special paper (check out the image), the pen stores everything you write in its memory. I have the 1GB version, though there’s also a 2GB model. So, as long as the pen is on it records what you write. Now for the voice recording. If you tap on the Record button which are conveniently located on the bottom edge of every page then the Pulse starts to record, just like a standard voice recorder. Here’s where the neat trick comes into play though: as you write, the Pulse keeps track of what you are writing and tags the audio recorded to that writing. 

When you’re done taking notes, you click the Stop button. Here’s the next neato trick: While the Pulse is not recording, you can tap on any of your notes and it will play back the audio recorded for that segment. Pretty slick, eh! The trick I’ve learned already is to just write a keyword as I’m recording instead of trying to keep up and missing stuff. If I have a question, I’ll write down a snippet to remind me of the question and then carry on with my conversation. Fraking brilliant! The other controls on the pages allow you to control volume, speed, jumping forward and backward to tracks, and making bookmarks. 

Using the headphones also sports a neat trick. The jack right into the end of the Pulse so you can listen to the recorded audio in stereo. Why? Sure, the built-in mic only records in mono, but when you jack in those wicked headphones, the Pulse records in stereo. That’s why there is a microphone in each earbud. Trust me when I tell you that this is remarkably helpful. Say, for instance, you’re sitting at a table talking with 4 or 5 people. Wearing the headphones (or wearing them down on your neck using the lanyard) lets the Pulse record your environment the same way you hear. When you play this stereo sound back later, you hear the direction people are speaking from. I find it a fantastic way to recall how the conversation was going since I can visualize the meeting. 

Once you’ve collected stuff on your new pen, its time to get that data onto your desktop. LiveScribe nicely offers both Windows and Mac OS X versions of the desktop client, though the Mac version has some catching up to do. For one thing, with the Windows version you can print your own paper. Not so on the Mac. Shame! Interestingly, the box doesn’t come with a CD in it, but when you do download the client for your operating system at least you’re getting the latest version. Once its installed, all you need to do is plug in the dock and place the pen into it. It connects and moves everything from the pen to the desktop client. Once there, everything which has a voice recording attached to it is highlighted in green. 

Now, if that wasn’t enough, there’s more. Say, for example, that you’ve been taking notes for a few months now and you’ve been asked by a colleague or classmate for a note you made back in some project meeting or lecture. All you need to do is load up LiveScribeDesktop and search for the keywords. The software is so smart that it can actually parse your handwriting and show you which pages any hits are on. No kidding! This thing is so smart that it can tell which notebook you are in and which page you’re turned to. Very, very cool indeed. 

There are some other gee willikers things the Pulse can do, but they really don’t add to the functionality except for the calculator. The nice thing that the developers have allowed for is adding new features through software updates. In fact, for the first month I had this thing I received no less that 10 updates to the pen software. Its pretty amazing that the Pulse sports a 150MHz ARM9 processor and a 300mAh LiIon rechargeable battery and crams ups to 2GB of storage space into such a cool pen. 

Simply put, if you pair the Pulse up with an iPhone, BlackBerry, or one of the new Palm Pre devices, you are set to go laptop free. I’m not kidding. The only thing that LiveScribe is missing is some more options in paper products. They have the big college-ruled notebooks and some largish bound notebooks with lines or no lines, but there are no notebooks or calendar books. I’d love to see a notebook which is as long as the Pulse, 3-4″ wide, unlined, with a barrel on the spine into which you can slide the Pulse while you’re not working with it. That and I’d really like to see an integrated calendar management tool. Maybe even synching it up to Windows or Mac OS X. Now that would rock. 

Now that I’ve turned you all on to the Pulse, I would like to inform you that you can have your own right now. You can head on over to LiveScribe’s web site and order one there or you can swing over to your local Target and get it there. The 1GB model runs for US$150 while the 2GB model runs for US$200. The reality is that this is just one of the single coolest gadgets available on the planet and I can only see it getting better and better.

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That’s where Wacom comes in, and they’ve been doing it very well for a very long time. A couple of years ago I reviewed their first Bluetooth wireless tablet. Let’s just say that, even though I liked it, I didn’t like the Bluetooth component. It was difficult to keep it charged and it would drop connections on occasion. Accuracy was also not so great. Wacom has come a long way on their low-cost tablets, though. Their new Bamboo tablets, while not wireless, are fantastically portable and work really, really well.

I received two of the tablets, the entry level Bamboo and the art-oriented Bamboo Fun which comes with Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 3.0 and Corel’s Painter Essentials 4.0 bundled in. The basic Bamboo comes in black and comes with a power supply, pen, and pen stand. Pricing is set at US$79 and its designed for basic pen input, text entry, annotation, and art. It does not come with a Wacom tablet mouse or any bundled software, but it works quite well with PhotoShop CS3. I also tried it with the software bundled with the Bamboo Fun and it works very nicely.

The Bamboo Fun comes in white, silver, blue, and black and comes in Small and Medium sizes. The small tablet priced at US$99 has an active area or 5.8″ x 3.7″ and the Medium priced at US$199, the one I received, has a 8.5″ x 5.3″ active area. I’ve mentioned that it comes with Photoshop Elements and Painter Essentials, but it also comes with a copy of Nik Color Effects Pro 2.0. All of the software installs on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs. Installation tests were performed on a Power Macintosh G4 (known as Mirrored Drive Door) and a MacBook Pro.

The tablets themselves are very nicely styled and quite thin. One of the nicest touches Wacom added was to thicken the included pens signifncantly. This achieves two things. First, it makes it easier to hold the pne comfortably. Second, it makes it far easier to hold the pen and actuate the button. On earlier, thinner pens it was hard to hold the pen in a way which you could easily push the button. As usual, the pen is magnetic, so it doesn’t require batteries or a leash. You can also swap out the nibs to get a different tactile feel depending on what you need. The Bamboo Fun also has an eraser at the end, and the tablet can tell which end is being used. The Bamboo pen has an eraser, but it doesn’t erase.

Overall, the tablets are fantastic and work as expected. Being artistic with them is quite easy, and anyone interested in or skilled at traditional art forms who want to get into computer-based art will find either of these two tablets a pleasant addition to your pallete. If you simply need to annotate documents or make digital signatures, the Bamboo is perfect and well priced.

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There are two primary points involved here. One, Apple has added complete Exchange connectivity to the iPhone 2.0 software, making it able to automatically connect to the single most used email server software in the world. They did so by making it work with ActiveSync, so that it meshes with the same technology Microsoft’s own Windows Mobile (and older Pocket PCs) use to syncronize data between desktop and email access provider. Two, people are tired of the phones they have so far been offered, what with their difficult to use and inconsistent interfaces, small displays, pointless PIM applications, and unreliable performance. More and more people have realized that the so-called “free” phones they’ve been offered are just shills for their service providers.

Apple and the iPhone have already made major strides in changing that by directly affecting the product design methodologies of other handset makers, just not always in the right direction. It seems that everyone has latched onto the idea that the iPhone’s sole aspect of success is its touchscreen. What LG and HTC and the others making touchscreen handsets now don’t get is that the touch part is only one small element of everything that makes the iPhone great. Its the best iPod ever made, its a portable media player, its an internet access system which fits nicely in your pocket, its a real PIM, its a messaging center, and, if you didn’t know, its a phone.

Some handset makers have taken notice, notably Nokia and RIM. Sure, they both already had a clear idea about how the mobile handset should also be a PIM and, at least in the case of Nokia, about how the handset could be a media tool, but form factors have long been hideous. Take most Blackberrys until the Pearl, which wasn’t a very good phone until the Curve came out, and Nokia’s Communicator series which is simply monstrous. Now RIM has introduced the very slick and aptly named Bold and Nokia is about to introduce the extremely sexy and functional E71. Neither of these are touchscreen devices, which is smart, because neither of these devices would work well as a touchscreen without a major overhaul.

What Apple has done is force the other makers to focus on their strengths and to address their shortcomings, and I’m sure Apple is aware of this. Its very likely that what Apple has done is knowingly caused the market to re-evaluate itself and its expectations, creating what it hopes will be a market-wide halo effect, driving even more customers to Apple. This, of course, will never be confirmed by Apple since they never confirm anything until they have officially announced it, and they only officially announce products, not strategies. It could also backfire on them. Apple is not the only source of innovation, and that’s not their only Achille’s Heel.

While I can’t claim to share the views of everyone, I do believe that there are some innovative offerings in the technology and mobile world which Apple did not have a hand in. As regular readers of me will know, I’m an IT guy a heart, and Apple has been stuck in IT Kindergarten while companies like HP and Dell have already graduated from college and gotten their Master degrees. Apple also lost its edge in the education market. Apple has never been able to shake the concept that their computers are more expensive, even though they aren’t. Most consumers who have not experienced Apple simply can’t wrap their minds around the idea that equivalent Windows-based systems cost the same, and in some cases more.

In innovation spaces, Google has made enormous strides in online technology. Who knows, maybe Apple’s new MobileMe, the replacement for .Mac, will be its answer to Microsoft’s Outlook and Google’s Gmail, all in one tidy package. Then again, at US$99 a year, its not been as huge a draw as Apple has hoped it would be, though now that they’ve added complete Windows compatibility, that may change. Despite Apple’s early hand in the PDA race, Palm was the most influencial contributor from which came Handspring, the inventor of the Treo, the handset which changed the smartphone industry forever. Oh, and no matter how you slice it, the iPod was not Apple’s idea. They just did it the best.

What Apple has done, however, is create the iPhone Era, which will start soon after July 11th. Be ready for it, for we will all reap the benefits, whether we buy an iPhone or another phone which was made better because of the iPhone’s influence and market impact. Just keep in mind, you don’t need to buy crap just because others are willing to settle.

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Where, then, does Linux come into the picture? Do you see all of these tiny little lappies hitting the market? OLPC started it with their little green bug and kicked it into gear when they started offering the Buy-Two-Get-One deal where one goes to a child in a 3rd world country and you get the other one. ASUS saw something in that and ponied up the Eee PC, a tiny little lappy with a 4GB solid state hard drive and an eensy weensy price tag. Buyers freaked and they flew off the shelves, and other fabbers took notice and made their own. They are called MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices) and are meant to be companions to your online life.

I would say that this is simply bad timing for Microsoft, but its also bad marketing. Microsoft, as usual, isn’t giving users what they want, the Redmond giant is demanding that the users do what Microsoft wants. It has numerous ways to leverage this desire, but its primary tool is its resellers like Dell, HP, Acer, and hundreds of others. Microsoft says jump, and they all ask how high, or at least they used to. At no time in Microsoft’s long history has it had to deal with a wide-open market, a bum new OS, a re-upstart in the form of Apple, the assumed arrival of Linux for end-users in Ubuntu, and a realization in end users that they don’t have to buy Microsoft to be “in the loop”.

Of course, that’s not all. The economy isn’t helping, either. People are either buying ultra cheap and sticking with Windows XP or they’re spending more on Apple, knowing that Mac OS X systems last longer and have a better resale value. Only those who honestly don’t know any better are moving to Vista, thinking that anything coming from Microsoft must be better than the previous version. However, more and more seniors are being dragged into the market by their tech-savvy children and getting into Ubuntu is very, very easy for first time users. The people behind Ubuntu have even created a new MID-specific version which has a new UI for smaller screens. There are plenty of other small screen UIs for MIDs, as well.

What’s Microsoft’s response to this major threat? To still cancel Windows XP Professional and continue to offer Windows XP Home Edition for MIDs, and it far from clear how long they’ll even do that. MIDs, by definition, are small, ultra low power devices which are not meant to be full portable systems or to replace desktop systems, so how does Microsoft expect MIDs to effectively run Vista, one of the single most resource intensive operating systems of all time. I mean, really. Considering what you can do with Vista that you can’t do with XP and what Vista sucks up just isn’t warranted. In the meantime, Linux runs faster on slower hardware, taking the utmost advantage of whatever resources it has access to.

What can’t Microsoft do, then, when faced with this threat. It can buy Yahoo!… oh, wait. That deal’s all finished, and Yahoo! is supposedly talking to Google about a team up. Hmm. I’d suggest that MS come out and say they made a mistake then take back their cancellation of XP and announce a new version of XP based on the Pro edition. Oh, and sell it retail for US$49. You’ll make bank, dawg! Everyone will get the OS they want, and even pay for it, since US$49 ain’t a high price to pay for a commercial OS. Hell, Apple users pay US$129 for each major upgrade, and happily!

I’m not sure what’s going to happen. Really. I’m just a pundit so I’m not qualified to read the future. What I can tell you, though, is that if Microsoft continues on the path it is traveling, Apple and Linux-based systems are going to start to gain some major marketshare. No, Apple isn’t going to dominate the market next year or even by 2012. Apple will have a very large marketshare, then, though. Keep that in mind. Keep watching the iPhone and the iPods which are now as necessary as underwear. Just keep watching.

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What is a MID? A MID is a Mobile Internet Device, a term coined by someone else whom I don’t care to lookup. It could have been Intel. It was Intel, in fact, which coined the term UMPC, or Ultra Mobile PC, which Microsoft later called its Origami Project. Much like the Tablet PC before it, people did not flock in sizable droves to purchase UMPCs with wild abandon. This is mostly because people don’t like them or find them useful. They are large, heavy, and cannot be closed to protect their screens. The market, indeed, is telling Microsoft what it wants. They do this by calling the large number of new micro-lappies UMPCs.

That is, after, what they are. It all started in earnest with ASUS’ Eee PC, a tiny sliver of a lappy, able to do just about anything as long as it didn’t require significant processor resources or touchtyping at over 100 WPM. Since the Eee PC shipped, there are now at least eight other competitors on the market, including products from HP and Dell, all of which are sub-US$800 systems, with most of them selling for under US$400. This brings us to the MID. The MID is what falls into the space being created for the pocketable PC. That idea which came to then Apple CEO John Sculley for a personal assistant which could go everywhere with you has come around again for another shot at the big time.

This time, however, Apple has already made their successful version and now others are trying to catch up. Its not just about the iPhone, though. Its about a range of different product technologies which are all coming together and finding that the technologies have improved enough to make certain technologies viable. In this case, its the MID; a convergence of the PDA, the mobile phone, the iPod, and a desktop computer. Yes, a desktop computer. Why? Because MIDs are capable of running Windows XP, various Linux distributions, and, in one case so far, even Windows Vista, though its not recommended. I would assume that by the time MIDs hit the market, someone will have hacked one to run Mac OS X, as well.

This is a compelling idea, yes? How could it not be compelling to be able to carry a full-sized desktop OS in your pocket and use it whenever you need, you say. That’s going to be a problem, though. Desktop OS are designed to be used with a mouse and a keyboard. We already know from the Tablet PC experiement that its actually more complicated to use a desktop interface with a pen and no keyboard, especially when entering data. That’s when using an interface designed for pen interaction becomes useful, but from years of experience with Palm and Windows CE based OS, I know that there’s a very limited amount of interaction you can have with a PDA OS.

It all comes down to data entry. If its going to be hard to enter data, then it won’t be used to enter data, and the MIDs will not fulfill their promise of a more powerful, portable computing platform. It will be another larger, faster PDA which uses more battery power and isn’t as convenient. Then again, I could be entirely wrong, and heaven knows I’ve been wrong before. The MID could be that bridge device which carries us into the next decade eyeing Star Trek’s science fiction concepts with confidence and swagger. Imagine a future where we get up in the morning, check out our news and answer our spam-free email, then grab our MID (which was acting as our desktop system in a cradle) and head out for the day.

We check movie times, verify our appointments with clients, set up a date with a GF or BF, plan a trip to Vegas with our pals, and all the while feel confident that we are computing in one place, with every iota of it being backed up constantly. That one place might just be our MID, a small, pocketable module which uses an Ultra Low Voltage CPU which still runs fast enough to run all major internet and office applications and is made even more powerful when connected to the home dock which adds a CPU, an optical drive, an additional hard drive for archiving and third-stage backup, and a video card to run an HD display. This rig will also allow you to make a receive video calls either at home on your big screen or while you’re out and about enjoying the fast and freeing WiMAX network.

Sadly, this is more a PR firms descriptive text than a possible reality. This IS, after all, what we want. This is not what we get, though. Competition prevents that from coming to fruition. To make such a device reality we would need to see technology sharing pacts between Intel, Microsoft, Apple, AMD, ASUS, Vonage, Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, Sun, EMC, Linux, and possibly the Pope. They’d all need to get together and say, “hey! Regardless of the fact that our individual survivial and success means that we must grind 2/3rds of you into the dirt within the next 20 years, we’d like to work with you to make this global computing environment a possibility within the next two years. Sound good?”

Yeah, right.

Among all of the other issues, I could see the entire Republican party having a simultaneous coronary and the FTC’s Antitrust department having some serious issues about all of this. Most of the companies in my incomplete list simply aren’t creative and forward-thinking enough to even be engaged in a part of such a conglomeration, much less spearhead it. So, in the end, the MIDs will just be another market niche. They will likely even sell well, though I predict they will sell more and offer more variants and models in Asian countries than here in the States. Ultra portables have long sold well in Japan and personal media players (the video kind) are very popular in Malaysia and South Korea.

In the meantime, Microsoft is busy making Vista the standard in the world and Windows 7 will just be larger and require more resources than Vista, completely the opposite of what a MID market needs. The best desktop OSes for MIDs are Windows XP, Mac OS X, and the king of the hill in embedded performance, Linux. Microsoft wants to kill XP dead, though, despite the fact that the market is making it plain and clear that it doens’t want to lose XP. Microsoft is making it equally clear that they don’t care what the consumer wants. Apple listened and produced the iPhone. If they ever make a larger, tablet-like one, then their MID will be perfect and complete. Linux already works perfectly well on a range of embedded systems.

So, again we are confronted with the truth that Microsoft isn’t interested in playing the game by the rules everyone else is cotent to play by. Not only will they not take their ball home so nobody can play, but they will replicate the ball and forcefully install it into every home in the neighborhood until people accept it as theirs. The telecoms are the same. Sprint has no interest in playing with Verizon or AT&T, and the latter two could care less about the others. It is their aim to win and not taking over the entire market is losing, so you see where we’re going there.

The reality is that no, MIDs will not be the tricorder, they won’t work like KITT, they won’t be an R2D2 to our Luke, and they won’t know how to make dinner reservations for us. They will be just another dumb tool which looks nice, costs a lot of money, and takes up space. Might as well get an iPhone and be done with it.

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I’m speaking, of course, of the LapWorks Attaché Laptop Stand, a new product in their extensive line of mobility products for laptop users. The stand ships in a standard FedEx packing box, so its not very large, but its certainly not designed to be a portable stand. Unlike its lower priced brother, the Attaché is topped with an aluminum face, which is supposed to draw heat away from the bottom of the laptop. This process is assisted by two ultra-quiet fans located in the center of the panel.

The entire unit is powered by USB and a cable is included. Oddly, and this was one of the things which my PR contact even found confusing, there is an integrated AC adapter port. Why is that odd? LapWorks was neither aware of the port nor offered a power supply which worked with it. It would be nice to have one, since the stand is also a USB hub. Sure, you can plug in mice and other USB 1.1 un-powered devices, but with an AC adapter, it should work as a powered hub. Oh well.

The overall design is simple. There is the platter which the lappy rests on. It has two flip-up lappy stops at the bottom edge. Around the back is located a riser tongue. Press the button under the right edge and it releases the tongue lock so you can select an angle. With my MacBook Pro is was, at most, able to select either flat or one notch up due to the Apple lappies display hinge arrangement. Classically hinged lappies can ratchet all the way up, though they don’t look as nice or work as well.

The resultant angle is very comfortable for typing and viewing. Whats nice is that, while they are large, the flappy stoppers don’t get in the way, even when using the trackpad. They are almost twice as tall as a MacBook Pro, though. The fans themselves are truly near-silent. When I first plugged it in I thought the unit was DOA, but sure enough, there was air flowing out of the sides. The stand seems to be well constructed, but there are some little issues I have.

First, the thing is laid out like a tripod. Take a look at the image above and you’ll see that most of the weight from the lappy is placed on the rear corners, where there is the least amount of structural support. Its very easy to tip it towards one of those corners, especially the left on my unit. While its in no real danger of tipping over, I don’t like it. Second, I don’t like the fact that there is no power supply included or even available. It would be fantastic, since it would act like a sort of USB hub/dock.

Pricing is set at US$69.96 and it is available now. I’m relatively pleased enough with the stand to say that price is reasonable, though it would do better if it came with the power supply. The other option is to drop the price by $15 and skip the power supply.

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I was already impressed in late 2006 when Logitech shipped me their first model, the mm50, which looks a lot like the new model, the Pure-Fi Anywhere. They also sound much the same; great. For the units size, portability, compactness, and utility, the Pure-Fi Anywhere is a phenomenal gadget. There are some differences, though. First, the remote on the mm50 was minimal, only offering remote access to the functions on the speakers and not of the iPod. The PFA adds the ability to control the entire unit, including the iPod. Logitech also added buttons on the speakers to control looping and randomization.

Where there seems to be some change is in the sound. Yes, they both sound great, but the PFA seems to be able to handle more output, where the mm50 would start to strain at the higher ends of the power band. The bass output is still very strong with its paid of mass drivers, the two larger speakers next to the iPod dock. When you play the unit quietly it maintains a subtle, low bass impression. Crank it up, though, and it starts to apply more bass and you can really feel it. The PFA, like the mm50, seems to be designed for the single user, though since that bass starts to fade as you move away from it.

The physical controls on the unit are still stiff and hard to press. They also don’t give much tactile feedback. Volume control is also a little weird in that it seems to step more increasing the volume and steps smaller when reducing. The remote, which now is able to control the entire iPod, takes some time to get used to. I would have preferred they implemented a jog-dial approach, but it works well when you get used to it. What I can’t get used to is the very loud clicking any of the buttons make when you press them. The batteries are easily replaceable, though, not that I’ve needed to yet.

In the end, however, its all about the sound and I’m really pleased with the evolution of these speakers. They were fantastic in their first iteration and they are even better now. Now for some basics. The Logitech Pure-Fi Anywhere speakers for iPod are portable speakers. It comes in a nice, zipper case with included remote control and a power supply that has a wrapper for the cable. It is available in black or white, and ships with a string of adapters for various models of dockable iPods. If you have another kind of PMP (Why?) there is an external source port (1/8th” standard stereo headphone jack). Finally, there is an integrated rechargeable LiIon battery pack which genuinely runs for 9-10 hours.

The Logitech PFA is priced at US$129, which is pretty reasonable for speakers of this quality, portability, and functionality. Interestingly, its exactly the same price the mm50′s were released at.

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The HP iPAQ 110 Classic is one of those devices. Its not a phone, but it might as well be. In fact, it runs Windows Mobile 6, which behaves just like the Professional versions of the same OS for mobile phones. The only things lacking are the phone-specific functions. On the other hand, it does feature both Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and 802.11b\g wireless capabilities, both of which can work at the same time. I, however, digress. I should be performing a formal review, so let that begin.

The Outside

Usually I’ll wait to start working with a new device once its charged, then I dive right in. However, in the case of the 110c, I was interested to see WinMo6, so I fired it up when I plugged it in. No harm, no foul. Since I’m describing hardware right now, I’ll refrain from OS observations. Suffice it to say, the 110c is a standard PDA format device. It has a screen on the front, there are some buttons along the bottom of the screen, and there are holes and buttons elsewhere on the device.

The display itself is a 240×320 QVGA type with 16-bit color and a touchscreen interface. In today’s hi-res display climate, the 110′s screen looks a bit pixelated, but the speed of the 624MHz CPU processes video very well, so its not terrible with video. The color is very good and the brightness is excellent. Small text sizes are also very readable, though Microsoft needs to offer more controls over how text is displayed, and it would be nice if someone (anyone?!) were to pay attention to left handed people again*

On the right side (screen facing) are the Power and Voice Recorder buttons with an inset reset button between. There is a headphone jack on the top right. The buttons work, but are maybe a tad soft. It won’t turn on, though, unless you press the power buton. The stylus is badly placed on the back of the unit next to the headphone jack and lacking sufficient notching to make it easy to locate and retrieve by touch. I’m much happier with corner mounted silos.

The case overall is two materials. The front is a smooth, smoky dark silver, shined to appear like metal. The back is a curved matte black expanse which feels slightly rubbery to the touch. I rather like it as it makes the device feel more secure in the hand, though it does scuff very easily. I LOVE the original iPAQ’s from Compaq, but they were so amazingly cool that they were slippery. The “sticky-ish” backing instills confidence. This is good, too, since the device is very, very light, even with the battery loaded.

The battery itself is user replaceable, but that’s not all. This device is USB rechargable. So much so, that you can plug it into a Kensington portable battery pack and recharge it in an hour. The interesting part is that there is a power control panel which controls whether, via USB, you charge over time or quickly. I’m sure it has something to do with quality of charge.

The Inside

It may be sufficient enough for me to say this: If you want to know what Windows Mobile 6 looks like, just use a Windows Mobile Smartphone. I have a Palm Treo 700wx and the interface, while slightly different, works almost identically. This isn’t necessarily a benefit for a PDA since people don’t use PDAs the same way they use mobile phones.

One of the issues I had with the new unified interface is the functions which, at least on a mobile phone, are performed using the contextual buttons. You know, the buttons just under the screen on your phone which do what the label on the screen says. They do that on the 111 as well, but there are no physical buttons, so you have to touch the screen to activate numerous functions or step through configuration wizards.

Otherwise, its a standard WinMo device with all of the expected applications like Office, Media Player 10, Internet Exploder, and the various tools that come part and parcel. HP decided to toss in a bunch of other stuff, too. One of the nice inclusions is a copy of ClearVue PDF. They also have a pair of utilities, two of which are Today Screen plugins. One controls wireless, both 802.11 and Bluetooth, and the other gives you quick information about the rest of the device, including a backlight control.

The Wrap Up

The PDA of 2000 is dead. The idea that you can get around without a mobile phone, a digital camera, and some kind of wireless connection to the internet is also dead. Products like the iPhone prove that. The PDA is 2008, however, is alive and is, in some small way, still a player in the overall market. HP’s iPAQ 110 Classic proves that, and its clear they now know that scads and scads of models do not sell devices. You can get yours for a mere US$299, though you may want to take a look at the more expensive iPAQ 210 Enterprise just in case.

*Not since the days of the Apple Newton MessagePad and early days of Palm were there UI elements designed to be swapped for left-handed people. You have no idea how much better a user experience can be by simply placing the scrollbar on the left side of the screen.

[Editor's Note: We made a running typo in the story which transposed the "110" for a "111". Please note that this review is of the iPAQ 110 Classic. There are no other review elements which need to be changed to correct this problem. Thanks! -Ed.]

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The Feature Set

The Pilot has a number of features. I’ll just run through the list here and then move on to some impressions. First, it can handle a number of media formats such as MP3, WMA, WMA Lossless, WMA DRM, WMA Pro, OGG, WAV, Audible, MPEG4 and WMV at 30 fps, and JPEG. It has an integrated FM radio which can handle RDS, the ability for radio stations to deliver station and song data over the FM radio signal. It has the aforementioned Bluetooth radio, a headphone jack, and even a Mic jack for audio recording. It does not, however, have an integrated mic for simple voice recording.

As indicated in the image above, the device is designed to be used in a horizontal orientation. I don’t really like the lack of being able to use it vertically, but its not that big of a deal. You are, however, able to rotate the screen 180 degrees to use it left handed. I’m left handed, but I’ve adapted to right handed operations for many things in life, so either orientation worked for me. Other, more “Left” lefties should appreciate it, though. The lack of the vertical orientation as an option was irksome, though. I guess it would have made it too iPod-like.

General Operation

I’ve used and reviewed an earlier device based on this software, Napster’s 1GB player from mid-2006 and found that interface to be unpleasant to use. I was surprised when I first fired up the Pilot to find a very similar interface, and I realized that it must have been made by the same company. My concerns were quickly washed away, however, because this more recent version is a damn sight better than the one on the Napster unit. Primarily because that disc you see in the picture, it actually works, ala 1st generation iPod. When I first removed it from the box, never having been touched by another reviewer, the wheel clicks were very hard and sharp, but after a little time, it loosened up nicely.

Interestingly enough, you’re not limited to navigating the much cleaner interface by just rotating the wheel. The wheel also clicks, ala the iPod clickwheel. This helps in a lot of cases where there is a grid of icons and not a list. For physical controls there is the aforementioned scroll wheel which has directional click capabilities, and has a Play/Pause button in the center. There is a separate Menu button in the corner. On the “Top” of the unit is a Power slider which incorporates a lock function. There is also a Voting toggle which allows you to apply ratings to tracks, which is somewhat interesting.

The graphical interface is very clean, has nice icons, and is very functional. In some places its a bit dense and it can be a tad confusing as to which control to use to get where you want to go, but its easy to pick up, even without reading the manual. There is an option to use the default circle-type menu or the easier to use matrix type which arranges the menu icons in a grid. You can also change the background image, but only from a list of included images. The Music Library section is packed with tabs which allow you to view what’s on your Pilot in a wide range of modes. One of the more interesting operational choices is that when you select an item, it doesn’t just play it, it asks if you want to play it or add it to a playlist, add it to what’s playing now, or even delete it. That’s either a feature or an annoyance depending on how you look at it.

Overall, its very easy to get around the interface after only a few minutes of fiddling with it. Not all that much different than the first time you touched an iPod. I’d rather there not be a ratcheting feel under the scroll wheel as they cause scrolling to be a tad inaccurate. One nice touch is the blue LED lights which surround the perimeter stick out slightly and make it very easy for your finger to grip the wheel as you turn it. Similarly, the Play/Pause button sticks up slightly so you can find it without looking. Really, the whole control scheme works well without completely emulating the iPod arrangement.

Bluetooth Nirvana And Sound Quality

Its impossible to miss, the large Bluetooth logo on the front of the unit between the controls and the display, and it clearly indicates that this device can handle A2DP connections to compatible stereo headsets. Configuration with the Insignia headset that Best Buy sent me was very simple and it worked out of the box without much fuss at all, something all Bluetooth devices should aspire to. The Pilot does come with a standard pair of earbud speakers, but they honestly sounded like crap, so my next try was the Bluetooth headset. I wasn’t impressed there, either.

My next test was to plug in a pair of Griffin’s excellent TuneBud headphones, designed for isolation audio and offering a clean and clear sound with excellent bass response. This allowed me to get a real sense of what the Pilot can put out. While not as good as Apple’s high quality sound chips in their iPods and personal computers, it sounds quite good. One thing that really peeved me was the EQ controls, which are just plain confusing. There are a number of presets which are easy to select, but there is also a custom EQ which you can tweak. The problem arises when you want to change the settings and then activate them. I spent a good 15 minutes wrangling with the controls to try and get the EQ to take my changes. Insignia needs to fix that, and quick.

Its A Video Player, Too!

Lest we forget, the Pilot is really a little PMP and not just a DAP. First, I had to install the included ArcSoft MediaConverter for Windows. I could easily manually transfer files to the device, but it was easier to allow MediaConverter to convert video and transfer the copy to the device, thereby ensuring that the video files would work. I copied 20 episodes of Invader Zim from a DVD to the device. Conversion time was very fast on my MacBook Pro in Boot Camp mode running Windows Vista Ultimate. Though I don’t recall the exact time, it took around 1 hour and 40 minutes to convert and copy to the Pilot.

I’m quite impressed with the quality of the display. There is no lag or blur and color is clean, if a tad dull. Oddly, Best Buy doesn’t list display resolution, but it is a 2.4″ display and they claim that it is a widescreen form factor. Its certainly wider than 4:3 ratio, but its nowhere near even 16:10. Its somewhere around 5:3 or 6:3 and I’d say that the resolution is probably in the range of 320×240 or so. I’m very pleased with the display and find it very easy to watch just about anything on it, with exception to 72mm print widescreen films. I haven’t tried encoding anything with subtitles yet, but if its 4:3 ratio (like Love Hina or Naruto) then it should be readable.

The Wrap Up

I can’t say I’m truly disappointed with any of the functions of the Pilot. It integrates with various services like Rhapsody, Rhapsody To Go, and the Best Buy Digital Music Store. The FM radio works with the RDS service for additional channel and track details. Battery life is long and strong and the battery is user replaceable. It works with Macs (as old as Mac OS 8.6) and PCs, so I’m sure it would also work with Linux-based systems. Its super light at only 2.1 oz. It has an SD card slot for adding even more storage.

The one thing I would like included would be either a speaker or bundled powered speaker attachment so I could use it to watch videos without having to use headphones. That would make it supremely usable and cool, as well as markedly cheaper than other PMPs which are larger, heavier, and far more expensive. In case you were wondering, after encoding and copying the 20 Invader Zim episodes, I still have 3GB free and the episodes look clean and clear with none of the mosquitoing you often see in badly compressed video files.

The Insignia Pilot comes in 4GB and 8GB versions. We tested the 4GB version, which sells for US$119. The 8GB version sells for US$149, so there’s no real reason to get the 4GB unless you need the extra $30 for lunch and a cab ride.

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