Here's my review of the Agenda Computing VR3 Linux-based PDA. It's long
:) Lots of information can be found about the VR3 here:
http://www.agendacomputing.com
http://agendawiki.com
http://www.google.com/search?q=agenda+vr3
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From a Newton users' point of view, the Agenda VR3 kinda sucks large. It
tries very hard to be a Palm, but fails at going any farther.
First off, the external package is nice. The external buttons are in smart
positions, especially the Page up / page down buttons. The stylus holder
has a microswitch inside it, so that when you take the stylus out it turns
itself on, and replacing the stylus turns the unit off. The integrated
screen cover seems a little flimsy, but locks over the screen nicely. The
stylus seems toothpick-thin compared to the eMate stylus I'm writing this
with.
Powering on the VR3 for the first time shows that it is real Linux - you
see real kernel startup messages and startup scripts. From pressing the
reset button to seeing the default LaunchPad app takes about a minute and
a half (including time for me to make the 5 taps to calibrate the
touchpad). My MP2100, fully loaded with apps, takes only 45 seconds to
reset and activate all the packages from Internal and my 10 MB card. Of
course, the VR3 only has to be booted when you change the batteries (2 X
AAA), otherwise it sleeps and wakes up instantly.
The VR3 runs a 66 MHz NEC VR 4181 CPU - a clone of the MIPS R4000 CPU. It
has 8 MB of DRAM and 16 MB of flash RAM storage. Unlike the Newton, all of
the OS and default apps are on the flash - there is no ROM. Out of the
box, there is 8 MB of flash free. Pretty respectable. (After I upgraded
to the latest OS, I had 3MB free. Hrm... I'm not quite sure where all the
flash went.)
The screen is pretty clear. It has that slick, 'writing on glass' feel of
the early MessagePad screens. The backlighting is the silly 'turn on the
backlighting and invert the pixels' type. I find it totally unusable
except for in almost total darkness.
General OS Notes:
The core OS is, of course, Linux. So built right into the VR3 is UNIX-like
memory management, multi-thread support, in short, a full Linux system. VR
Linux even has a Terminal app that provides access to a Linux shell and
all of the usual UNIX utilites. You can even make a PPP connection over
the serial cable to a desktop computer and login to the Agenda over
telnet. For me, being a big UNIX geek (especially Linux), this gets major
geek points :)
With only one or two apps open, the Agenda stays fairly responsive.
Opening five or six 0f the standard apps slowed things down to around the
speed of an MP 120/2.0. Also, I found it very easy to crash the included
"Icosahedron" app so that it sat in the background, using 100% of the CPU.
The only way to remedy this is to either reset the unit, or open the
Terminal and tap out some UNIX commands. I hardly think Agenda expects
normal users to do the latter. (Note: updating the OS seems to have fixed
this, as well as making multitasking much better.)
Built-in apps:
All of the built-in apps have a very spartan look and feel, much like what
I've seen of PalmOS. There are none of the nice little touches Of Newton
OS, like icons next to entries or the like. The GUI components are,
generally, pretty plain. There seems to be only one font: Helvetica.
The "backdrop" app of the Agenda is the LaunchPad. It's almost identical
in look and feel to the PalmOS, err, app-launcher-thingy. The difference
is on the Agenda you can close it and just use the 'a' menu (like the
Newton menu in DashBoard, or the Start menu in Windows > 95) silkscreened
on the bottom of the screen to launch all of the apps instead. There's
also buttons there for Contacts, Todo, Schedule, Notes, Calculator, and
Keyboard for entering data.
'Keyboard? What, I have to tap on a silly little keyboard?' No, you
don't. The keyboard can be considered a 'soft' entry area - tapping on
the Keyboard button will bring up or remove the Keyboard on demand.
Full-screen apps will resize themselves automatically (and their views can
then be scrolled with the scroll buttons on the outside of the unit). The
Keyboard actually provides two different modes of entry: two keyboard
layouts (one for letters, one for numbers and symbols) and the gesture
recognized.
The Agenda is limited in that, like the Palm, there is a designated
Graffiti area. The gesture recognition on the Agenda is split into four
boxes: one for uppercase letters, one for lowercase letters, one for
numbers, and one for symbols. Why? Well, I don't know. I would presume
to help out the recognizer. Anyways, in my humble opinion, the recognizer
isn't very forgiving. I initially had problems just trying to figure out
what some of the gestures were (I have never used any gesture-based
recognition, ever), but even after I consulted the table, often small
mistakes would result in having characters misrecognized or, if the Agenda
can't tell what the gesture might be, it just prints nothing.
The apps overall are pretty standard fare. Notes is a very simple Notes
application, like the Palm's. The Calculator supports programmer's and
normal scientific modes, as well as a basic mode. The Schedule has the
usual options: it supports repeat meetings, multi-day meetings, alarms,
repeat meetings, but it has no concept of events like the Newton does. It
can show all the meetings for a day or month, but not a week. Contacts is
a pretty standard contact manager, supporting multiple addresses and phone
numbers for a single person, as well as a preset number of custom fields
(whos names can be changed). Todos is a basic checklist of items, that
can be assigned priorities and due dates.
There is also a standard host of utilites: Power settings, TimeZones
(which has a neat zoomable world map), Security, and Network.
Connectivity:
The Agenda has an IrDA port, and items from all of the built-in
applications can be beamed to other Agendas, Palms, and Newtons with
BackTalk (I tested this with the BackTalk demo), but there's no way to
select and send a bunch of items at the same time. There's a proprietary
connector on the bottom that has RS232 serial and a proprietary
"keyboard/modem" connector. The RS232 is used with the included cable to
do syncs and communicate via PPP (Linux) or MS Direct Cable Connection
(Windows) to the outside world. The Agenda doesn't have any Internet
applications built-in (other than telnet), but a Browser and e-mail client
are said to be "coming soon". There's also currently only real sync
software for Linux, and then it only syncs to the GNOME standard address
book and scheduler. A Windows sync program is also said to be "coming
soon". There is also an external clip-on 56K modem available (maybe this
comes with the Internet tools? I don't know.)
Things that are just plain missing:
-Ability to easily add, delete, and generally manage the installed
programs. Right now the only way to do so is to download the OS image
from Agenda, unpack it with some UNIX tools, tinker with it, and then
repackage it.
-Good sound support. The VR3 has a 1/16" audio jack that apparently has
line in/out to a real sound chip, but otherwise the it only has an
external buzzer which cannot be turned off.
-Ability to write HWR/gestures anywhere on the screen. Why, why why has
no one just copied the Newton style of input widgets yet? What is so hard
about users /writing on a line?/ Sigh.
-Built-in help. There's almost no built-in help. The manual is
distributed on the included CD, in PDF 4.0 format. I didn't have Acrobat
Reader 4.0 or better installed (I use full Acrobat 3), so I had to seek
out and install it.
-Rechargable batteries / charging through the cradle.
-Lack of a built-in ebook reader.
-There's probably a plethora of configurable options that just aren't
accessable.
-Left-handed people probably won't like where the pageup/pagedown buttons
are: they're on the left site of the unit, easy to use with your thumb if
you're right handed.
Things that make it cool:
-Since the OS is 1) Linux and 2) open source, and because Agenda had a
special developer-only deal on early release VR3 units, there's great
third-party support, and standard Linux/X applications are beginning to be
ported. Anything from games to little hacks to big hacks (like an
alternate HWR system) are being written by people and given away. It's
amazing that there is such a good developer and general user community
already.
-I did actually carry it around in my shirt pocket for a few days, which
was neat. On the other hand, all I did with it was play the built-in
Solitare game.
-Neat hardware hacks, like the stylus switch (and apparently there's a
similar switch in the battery compartment - maybe for something like the
MP1x0 rechargable battery switch?)
That's basicially all I have to say. I'm not going to stop using my
Newton anytime soon, that's for sure. I'll probably end up giving my VR3
to my father, if he likes it, or just keep it around and hack about with
it. Unless someone wants to trade me for something cooler (now that my
girlfriend's got her very own eMate, I have serious eMate envy...) eMate
memory upgrade anyone?
-- Victor Rehorst - victor_at_newtontalk.net - chuma_at_chuma.org NewtonTalk list administrator - http://www.newtontalk.net Will help you with your list problems - as long as you're nice.-- This is the Newtontalk mailinglist - http://www.newtontalk.net To unsubscribe or manage: visit the above link or mailto:newtontalk-request_at_newtontalk.net?Subject=unsubscribe
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