- Symbian phones with keyboards

- Abiword on Nokia 800

- Epoc machine on offer

- Psion 5mxPro Infrared failure

Date: 4 Mar 2008 11:00:26 +0000
From: Lewis Hartman <address truncated>
Subject: Symbian phones with keyboards

a player.  It is missing a good camera (I have a good digital camera anyway), WIFI, GPS and - relevant to this mail - a proper keyboard.  I like the ability to quickly input text as notes or memos, using the software keypad or text recognition is ok, but a proper keypad would be better - but one that doesn't overtly increase the size of the device - unlike most of the current crop - AND they use Windows!!!.

I have been waiting for either Nokia or SE to come up with a device that meets my needs - the Nokia N9x series is very good, but lacks keyboard and touchscreen.  The E90 is too big.  The recent SE P990  P1, etc do not appear to be improved enough over my p910 to warrant upgrade.

I therefore saw - with growing excitement - the new SE X1 - perfect size, shape and spec - BUT it is using WINDOWS!!!!  WHY????!!!

Does anyone know why none of the Sybian manufacturers have designed a smartphone with a built in keyboard using Symbian?  It can't be that hard, and seeing how many of the HTC, etc phones are selling, there must be a market...

Yours rather annoyed.

Lewis Hartman

Date: 4 Mar 2008 11:42:36 +0000
From: Timothy H.D. Williams <address truncated>
Subject: Abiword on Nokia 800

th you - although Nisus did have a function that no other wp 
had; that of reading in French, German and Spanish aloud. And don't 
forget that Word 5.1 for Mac weighed in at 884 kb.

However, I have yet to find a wp that works on the Nokia 800. Abiword 
in its most recent form is not stable. I would certainly use the Nokia 
800 more if I could spell check with it. There's no shortage of Linux 
spell checkers but I don't see where they are ported to the Tablet.

On the other hand, gnumeric is an excellent spread sheet.

I prefer the Nokia 9300 because it is so easy to back up the address 
book to the Mac. Tthere is a bug in the spreadsheet application on the 
the 9300/9500 which means that if you use Excel file format on the 
phone, every time you open a file you find that much of the formatting 
has been lost.

T

Date: 5 Mar 2008 19:51:07 +0000
From: Marc Teeuwissen <address truncated>
Subject: Epoc machine on offer

quite a while, simply because I do not do much mobile computing these days.
Rather than keeping it, just for the exceptional machine that it is, I thought I put it up for sale. It's in good working order, used obviously, and comes with necessary extra's. It is a UK version, V1.05.

If people have a serious interest, please private e-m me.

Kind regards, Marc Teeuwissen, the Netherlands

Date: 6 Mar 2008 00:32:21 +0000
From: Austin
Subject: Psion 5mxPro Infrared failure

nt below).

Unfortunately, after a couple of times when the infrared seemed to cut off and be a bit inconsistent (I thought it was a phone problem at first) the infrared port seems to have stopped working completely.  I'm pretty sure this is the case because my spare 5mx still communicates with the phone but neither the phone or the spare 5mx can connect to the 5mxPro.  I have tried a soft reset and even a hard reset, to no avail.

Has anyone come across this problem before?  I have been unable to find any mention on the internet despite extensive searching.

Does anyone know if it is possible to fix the problem?  As many of you will know this particular machine is very special because of the extra RAM and I want to hang on to it, rather than "downgrade" back to a standard 5mx.

Just for a bit of fun, and in case anyone needs reminding why I think the 5mx is STILL functionally streets ahead of anything I've yet seen in a hand-held package.  I think this list will give any of the recent handheld devices that have been the subject of much recent discussion a good run for their money in terms of range of usable productivity functionality - though if you want a wifi DVD playing phone, look elsewhere :)

For me it remains competent as a substitute for a laptop for essential tasks when travelling light - e.g. by air to remote locations - standard AA batteries and no heavy charger with keyboard and, on a typical trip I would use these features regularly: e-mail, (basic) web, mapping/ GPS/ directional navigation (UK + Europe) including tidal  marine AND (limited coverage) underground/ subway travel, (basic) Java calculators (e.g. solar eclipse, sunrise etc), word processing/ sheet calculations  charting, contacts, agenda, phone management  sync including SMS, calculation  conversion, a dictionary, handwriting recognition, newsreader and web downloader, graphics  illustration and a range of astronomical functions, web page generation, PDF reader AND writer (from any application that can print).  I could go on but know that some of you will think I'm living in the past... :(

Best
Austin