One of the two currently available top of the line pocket pc devices

The Toshiba e805 is one of the two “top of the line” pda’s currently available to the consumer. Both units cost in the six hundred dollar range with occasional fifty to one hundred dollar rebates. The other unit is Ipaq’s 5555. Both units offer a 400mhz cpu and 128 meg of volatile (does not keep data without power) RAM and some non-volatile (data is kept even if the battery dies) or NAND storage. The Toshiba, unlike the Ipaq offers built-in compact Flash IO (CFIO) and Secure Digitial (SDIO) slots while the ipaq offers only a, SDIO slot; CFIO can be added by purchasing an additional add-on. Both units also offer wifi, add-on accessories, extended batteries, etc. The Toshiba e800 series has received a great deal of acclaim for the screen technology, it has an ATI video chip with 2 mb of video ram with makes for an exceptionally bright, clear, screen even at low brightness levels and many programs output can be rotated on the screen to landscape mode for easier viewing. The Toshiba screen also offers a higher resolution mode that so far is not really being very well supported in today’s applications but that could change in the future (I’ve read that someone has written a software hack that lets most applications use the high resolution mode).

What made me choose the Toshiba over the Ipaq was mostly to do with the fact that it has both CF and SD slots built into the machine without the need to purchase an additional $80 accessory pack. I primarily use my pda to run a mapping gps program and I need both slots to use the package as handheld with the GPS unit occupying the CF slot and a SD card to store maps.

Specs on the Toshiba e805 (from Toshiba’s site)

Equipped with Intel® PXA263 processor 400MHz
Microsoft® Mobile Software for Pocket PC 2003 Premium Edition
4.0” TFT Transreflective Color display (240 x 320 portrait resolution w/64K colors)
128MB SDRAM memory, 32MB CMOS Flash ROM, 32MB NAND Memory (Flash ROM Disk) Application memory
ATI Graphics Controller w/2MB internal video memory,
1-SD (Secure Digital) card slot (3.3V)
1-Type I/II CF Card Slot (3.3V)
integrated Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b)*
Cradle Connector Port(USB Client, USB Host, Serial)
Infrared port (115kbps)
Stereo headphone/Microphone port (Stereo; 4 ring jack 3.5mm)
Additional ports using optional Picture View Presentation Pack (PA3326U-1PRP): 1-RGB (Monitor) port and 1-USB port.

*(in Europe you can buy this machine with Bluetooth instead of wifi)

Built-in Software and Additional software (from Toshiba’s site):

Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, Pocket Internet Explorer, Microsoft® Reader for Pocket PC, Microsoft® Windows® Media™ Player 9 for Pocket PC, File Explorer, MSN® Messenger, Microsoft® Transcriber, Microsoft® Active Sync® 3.7, Microsoft® Outlook, IA Presenter for ATI, IA Screen Mirror for ATI, World Clock, Toshiba Voice Recorder, Toshiba Text to Speech for Pocket PC, Voice Command, Toshiba ConfigFree™ Software, and VoIP Software.
Setup:
Windows XP offers the easiest installation, windows 98 or earlier may require more drivers or a more complicated setup procedure.

Setup is also a bit different depending upon whether or not you already have Microsoft Activesync and Microsoft Outlook already loaded on your machine. If you already have these two programs on your system all you must do is connect the cradle or usb/sync cable and activesync will detect the new handheld and give you an opportunity to tell it what kind of partnership you want to setup for it, you can setup to sync all data or just to allow a guest relationship for onloading/offloading data from the pda. Be aware, if you’ve already got another pda setup on your system you will probably need to find the setting in the toshiba’s system settings and change the name of the pda. I believe the default is always pocket_pc I changed the default name on my Toshiba to Toshiba so it wouldn’t conflict with the Aaxim x5 that I also sync to my desktop.

If you don’t already have outlook and activesync on your desktop then install them from the cdroms that came in the box with the pda.

1. Install Outlook first as there’s nothing really hard about this installation. Outlook lets you backup your contacts and notes and calendar from the applications on your pda and “sync” them so you have the same data in both places. As an email program I personally think Outlook sucks big ones but the other functions work very well.

2. Installing Activesync can be a little bit more of a hassle. In the process of installing the program it will load a driver onto your desktop so your pda will be detected. I recommend not hooking up your cradle or putting your pda on it until you get to the point in the installation where activesync is searching for your device. When you see the screen with the cut graphic and it says it’s searching then put the pda in the cradle or hook up the usb/data sync cable and activesync should see it and ask you what kind of partnership you want to have. The top one will setup a full partnership to sync all data between your desktop and your pda. The next window will ask you what you want to sync. I personally think email on a pda is a waste so I never bother with that, I only sync notes, calendar, tasks, contacts, files, and clear the other boxes.

You should now have a pda that will sync with your desktop and outlook.

What’s so good about the e800 series?

The unit offers SDIO and CFIO slots for memory and devices that use the same form factor (such as GPS, wifi or Bluetooth cards, bar code scanners, etc.), so far it’s the only unit with these specs that does. One hundred twenty-eight meg of ram is a lot of space, as much as many desktops have. Since handheld pdas are meant to be small and compact they have to offer enough storage to store a bunch of programs and data without becoming so big that you feel like you might as well get a laptop!

Built in wifi can come in handy. Many public places such as libraries, shopping malls, and starbucks coffee houses are beginning to offer wifi portals that are fee based or free so you can relax and check your email, surf the net etcetera. A built in wifi unit is not always as good as an external wifi card when it comes to range. This is because the antenna is just not as good on a built in wifi card (i.e. it helps to have that antenna stick up outside the machine). In Europe the e800 pda is offered with wifi or Bluetooth networking standard but only the wifi version is sold in the USA.

Most software for the pocket pc is still designed to run in the much more common configurations of 64 or 32 meg ram so that 128 Meg will hold A LOT of pocket pc applications and data. The Toshiba comes with windows mobile 2003 premium edition preloaded on it. I’m not exactly sure of the big differences between premium and regular 2003 but I can tell you there are a number of differences between the mobile 2003 premium on the Toshiba and the regular mobile 2003 edition on my Dell Axim X5. The most notable difference I’ve seen so far is security handling under internet explorer. For example, I can’t log onto my web mail portal and read my email (over wifi) with the Axim but I can with the Toshiba. Operating System implementation has been a much discussed issue with handheld pdas, Toshiba at least so far as I’ve been able to find out, seems to have a good reputation for the way they implement the PPC os on their handheld machines.

The Toshiba offers several additional potentially useful software programs such as a text to speech application and a voice over IP application that would allow you, with the proper equipment to make voice calls over the internet via a wifi connection. I also find the hold button very useful, it will lock the buttons on your pda to prevent accidental activations in your pocket or briefcase that can quickly run the battery down. Like my axim x5, the 800 has a scroll knob on the left side for scrolling large documents up/down on the screen.

Accessories:
The Toshiba offers the usual spat of cables, car chargers, etc but is rather unique in that it offers an add-on “presentation package” with a USB port and a standard VGA port that will output to any standard non-digital monitor or possibly a business type projection system for power point presentations, displaying spreadsheets, etc. There is also a USB host port cable, both items plug into the sync port on the bottom of the unit.

The USB port on the presentation pack add-on (presumably the host port cable also) will support most devices that don’t need a special driver to work (i.e. any device supported by the Windows Mass Storage Driver). So far it easily supports mice and usb keyboards but there have been some reports of other devices that will work such as usb pen drives. Personally, I’ve been able to get my addonics (see my review) notebook hard drive enclosure working with some third party drivers but the usb port does not provide enough power to run the hard drive by itself, there has to be external power for the hard drive so I’ll need to investigate a battery pack or a 12v adapter/DC to AC inverter to use the external drive w/o access to AC.

The stock battery that the unit comes with is supposed to offer something like 4 hours of use and a extended battery for much longer run time is available (they claim something ridiculous like 40 hours, I’ve not seen any real world tests of the extended battery yet but on most units 12 hours seems quite average for the extended battery). The extended battery is expensive (about a $100.00 no matter where you look) and not too many places are carrying it, probably because it’s not a particularly prevalent machine yet.


And now for the bad:

So far I’ve not seen too much complaining about the e800 series of Toshiba pda, of course they haven’t been out that long and not many people have them either because of the high price point. About the only complaint I’ve seen mentioned a couple of times is that the screen “buzzes” on some units—whether this is a defect that Toshiba will replace the unit for I haven’t heard. Toshiba picked up a really bad reputation for lack of customer support with their e740/e750 series handhelds, those units have a fairly bad rep for problems right out of the box or problems after only a few months of use. It remains to be seen what kind of rep the e800 will gain, one can hope that they did it right this time and there won’t be near the issues there were with the e740/750 series of Toshiba pda.

My axim x5 comes with a built in utility that sits on top of the screen and lets you stop running programs without going all the way into the system tabs, then memory tab to shut them down if the program itself doesn’t have an exit button. The Toshiba lacks this nice feature—there are third party apps that do the same thing but loading them takes precious memory away from something else.

Windows Mobile idiosyncrasies: Pocket pc OS is unlike most Microsoft desktop operating system products where they at least basically attempt some backward compatibility with older software. In many cases, a program or accessory designed for pocket pc 2002 will not run properly on windows mobile 2003 and with windows mobile 2004 due out very soon it remains to be seen what kinds of problems will be seen with that update. Also unlike desktop applications, unless you paid a great deal of money for your application or gadget, don’t expect a patch or updated driver to accommodate the new operating system; most companies expect you to buy the application again because you upgraded your handheld’s operating system.

Toshiba’s Policy on OS updates: In the past there’s been much yelling that Toshiba didn’t offer e740 owners the choice to upgrade to windows mobile 2003, even for a fee, while they did offer e750 owners the upgrade. E740 owners feel basically abandoned by Toshiba due to a lack of ongoing support. It’s not known what they’re going to do with the e800 series but after having been through one set of problems caused by the upgrade to 2003 from 2002, I’d really have to be convinced that 2004 was going to be worth the problems and hassles and $$$ before I’d even think about upgrading again.

Memory backup capacitor instead of a backup battery: The Toshiba 740/750/800 pdas all use a backup capacitor that will preserve your memory for only a few minutes with the main battery off. I much prefer the button cell battery on my Axim X5, it will last at least 24 hours if you’re caught someplace with a dead main battery. You can program the 800 to keep a certain amount of battery power in reserve to hopefully avoid this problem. There are also “battery extender” units available on ebay that use 4 AA rechargeable batteries to recharge the internal battery on your pda.

Overall what I think of it:
So far I’m very impressed with this unit, the screen is positively unmatched on any other pocket pc pda that I’ve ever seen. I think some of the accessories are overpriced but I hope that as the machine gets more followers I’ll start to see more stuff offered on ebay as it already is for my beloved axim x5.

The usb host port was a huge selling point for me but it also means that accessories such as serial gps units will be a more difficult installation (so stick with a CF unit, I don’t know if a USB GPS unit will work on the Toshiba or not with the host cable or the presentation package—I really doubt the Toshiba would be able to supply the power needs of a usb gps unit).

In terms of battery life, so far I’d say the Dell x5 has this machine beaten hands down but I haven’t really had a chance to give it a fair real world test either. The built in wifi seems to work well but I haven’t had a chance to load up a signal strength meter and test it around the house. I have a wireless G router/access point setup in my home and the Toshiba had no problem connecting to it even though I have SSID disabled in the setup for the router (some wifi transceiver units have a lot of trouble with this), this is a basic security measure since I don’t want to mess around with WEP security (which isn’t supposed to be that good anyhow). The speaker on the Toshiba is better than most but still just a very small speaker, sound quality is much better over the headphone jack and unlike other pda’s I’ve seen, offers bass and treble controls for the headphone output. I’m kind of curious to try out the Voice over IP program that is included with the Toshiba, I believe you have to sign up to use this and it looks like there’s a fee involved, I’ll post more once I investigate. To use the VOIP you need a headset/microphone that will work on the 805, Toshiba sells one but it seems a bit pricey.

Most of all I’m impressed with the improvements to internet explorer for the pocket pc in the premium edition as compared to the version I have in my axim x5. On the Toshiba ie automatically resizes pages for the small screen and security works properly so you can log into secure sites such as banking and web mail portals. I like the hold button that locks all the keys to prevent accidental activations, the axim x5 doesn’t have a hold button but does offer something in a setup screen that lets you shut off button presses that would normally turn the unit on.

The case on the Toshiba is pretty but feels kind of chintzy when compared with my axim x5 that feels like a tank in my hand. The axim has a good reputation for surviving falls and even immersions, I doubt the Toshiba will be the survivor the axim is reported to be. The presentation pack is made of somewhat chintzy plastic and when it’s installed you can’t sync without removing it. I’m pretty happy that I was able to get an external hard drive working on the Toshiba USB port with some third party drivers. That for me was also a big selling point as I don’t want to lay out the money that large compact flash cards or CF microdrives cost, it was much cheaper per megabyte to build a notebook hard drive in an externally powered enclosure (ie. 4 gig microdrive $200 , 20 gig notebook hard drive with externally powered enclosure $150.00 and easily upgradeable where the microdrive isn’t but it’s also not quite as portable as a microdrive either).

What do I use it for?:
Mostly my pda runs my mapping gps package with a compact flash gps unit for handheld use or a serial mouse for in-vehicle use. Mapopolis 4 runs just great on this pda.

To close:
This is a great top of the line unit and is worth the money. Most applications can’t take full advantage of this unit yet but you have so much functionality and so much RAM that it can do many things competently with the right software and accessories. I like the USB port for several reasons including the ability to use a standard USB keyboard and mouse without having to invest in one of those rather expensive folding units that use the infrared port.

update: Anypak (www.anypakusa.com), is the maker of a small lightweight external usb hard drive. They are apparently working with the gentleman who wrote the customized pocket pc driver for the "ipaq storage brick" and they are acting as agent to offer the pc2003 compliant version of this driver for sale (cost is $20.00-very reasonable). If your pda has a usb host port (as the toshiba does) chances are you can use this driver to access an external usb hard disk device, memory card readers, and in some cases other devices with a built in hard drive such as some mp3 players. So far this driver allows the Toshiba to communicate with my external hard disk in the addonics enclosure, and, it also works with my Archos multimedia jukebox 20 handheld device (which has its own battery). I've also seen a forum post from someone with a different model of Archos mp3 player who said the driver from the anypak site works with his device also. When the drive is mounted it appears as "USB hard drive" in the Toshiba file explorer menu.

update 5-2004: I've had a little more time to play with this unit now. I have to agree with other comments I've heard about toshiba in that it seems to need the occasional softboot (reset) for whatever reason. I use my ppc device primarily to run a mapping gps setup, for some reason when I've got power saver mode checked under the cpu tab in power settings my software (mapopolis 4.42) crashes to the today screen to an annoying degree when I try to set routes or select maps. I suspect that some of this may be caused by the unusually large amount of ram available on the 805, the program just doesn't know what to do with itself when presented with all those resources.

The crash problem lessens when I uncheck the power saver button, however, this also means the unit is running full tilt all the time and that does decrease battery life. I'm assuming the power saver setting is something like the "AUTO" mode on my axim x5 that is intended to throttle back the cpu when all that horsepower isn't needed (like when its sitting idle).

Battery life: I immediately bought the extended battery because I have a tough time remembering to put it back on the charger every night and I'm not sure it should be. I started out leaving the unit on the charger when not in use because Lithium ion batteries supposedly just love to be on the charger all the time, however, my power supply is now making a slight whining noise so I've switched over to only putting it on the charger for 48 hours when the battery is low.

Toshiba is now selling a standalone battery charger so you can charge two spare batteries. I'd like to have this but I think the price is still too exhorbitant. Toshiba doesn't seem to be letting too many places carry accessories for this unit and even after being out for quite awhile, there's still very little for sale on ebay which is where I got the best bargains on batteries for my axim.

Again I'll say it, the battery life on this unit is just not as good as my axim x5. If the unit is just sitting idle I get perhaps two weeks plus a few days of life off the extended battery (generally with 400 mhz mode selected--I usually forget to turn the power saver back on after I'm done with my gps software), my x5 with extended battery has been known to go a month in my purse and still have a good bit of life left in the battery (with cpu auto mode selected). In fairness I may not have cycled the battery enough times yet, this type of battery generally needs three or four full charge/discharge cycles before it reaches its full capacity & the difference in the cpu speed selection is also part of the difference in life (but this is still a whole lot of difference).

I'm still happy with the machine. I haven't yet investigated that registry hack that enables the high resolution screen for any program and not just those designed to use it. I've used the wifi a few times for a bit of email checking and while I do see some difference to battery life it isn't bad. All I need now is for the prices on the batteries to come down a bit, a second extended battery will give me all the life I need for long plane trips or anyplace I might go without electricity.

update 06-17-04: Toshiba has released windows mobile 2003SE for this unit (at least they have on the European site that is). 2003SE is apparently different enough from 2003 that many applications are not running properly with it, I've also read complaints about screen handling on the toshiba 805 with this update. My favorite mapping pacakge, mapopolis, doesn't run reliably on the SE update and I'm told many other packages are having problems as well. I won't be upgrading until I know for sure everything I use has been upgraded for the SE patch.