After seeing the first new handheld palmOne Zire 31, for some reason I thought about school, her first class, one of the most vivid impressions of childhood. New feelings, new friends, very different, completely unknown (and thus particularly attractive) adulthood. I remember being collected in the first grade, his new backpack, textbooks, still smelling of printer's ink, thin notebooks in the broad line, pencil case with pens and diary in changeless dermatinovoy cover, which is associated with so many good and not so memories. The diary, in fact, was the epitome of the school, the symbol of that independence, which was not previously - a symbol of future liability. He keeps a schedule of my classes, homework, teacher observations, and, of course, the evaluation of academic performance and behavior. Without it, imagine my schooling would have been impossible in its pages displayed my entire school life. My analogy between an old diary and a new Zire 31 is absolutely not accidental. In its design and functionality of this handheld is somewhat like my first school diary, just a new PDA for the role of the modern diary is much better. As far as my experiences are valid - judge for yourself.
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Cover
Diary should be small, lightweight, comfortable to sit in your hand and be easy to use. Zire series from its inception was conceived as a low cost, cheapest Zire cost about $ 100, and the most expensive around $ 300. Therefore, use as base material soundly, but relatively cheap plastic is quite understandable. In this case also reduces the overall weight of the device, which is not unimportant. The most amazing thing that this new computer does not look like a cheap trinket. For all the simplicity of execution it definitely felt style - the harmony of simplicity and functionality.
No extra buttons - on the front panel only Five-way navigation button (D-Pad), two application buttons (by default "calendar" and "contacts") and the button ON / OFF switch. All very simple. Why two buttons instead of four - will be discussed below. Casual mention only that it is no accident.
Side faces are also not burdened by any government.
That's only on the left side are two slots, but they are usually covered with white, matching the color of the back of the cover, rubber plug.
One of the ports used to connect the AC adapter, and the second, miniUSB, USB cable for communication.
At the top end - a memory card slot, infrared port, a container for a plastic stylus and headphone jack.
It is distressing that included headphones could not be found. Trifle, of course, but "precipitate remained.
Protective function is performed by a rubber cap. It looks rather unassuming, but their functions to cope well. Just do not understand the logic of the developers. In the middle of the lid has a small indentation just under the size of the display, so that when the lid closes the screen, you can see is on the computer or not. However, the text through this cap does not discriminate. Not it would be difficult to make this area a transparent (or cap all), so that could read the text, not throwing the lid.
This cap is attached, thanks to a small groove on the back of the case.
There, on the rear panel is and the lattice dynamics. Light weight of 116 g and miniature size - 112h74h16 mm - machine as if specially made for tiny hands schoolboy.
Life
It is desirable that a single battery charge CCP enough for one day of training, so that upon returning home, the child can independently charge the device. If we look at the time of autonomous operation of the device, then, frankly, I expected that the results will be fairly modest. However, in spite of my doubt, the kid showed a very decent results. Not a record, of course, but it is. When playing music from the card SD (when the display is off) the battery enough for 6 hours and 15 minutes. When reading the results too optimistic - 7 hours at a minimum illumination and 4 hours - at a maximum. With video, the situation is slightly worse - 3-5 hours, again depending on the level of illumination. So when light use - 10-15 minutes per lesson, and 5-10 minutes to completely change Zire 31 should be enough for a full school week.
Perception of information
First and foremost, it is necessary to contrast and brightness dicpleya Pocket PC for school were sufficient for a comfortable perception of the information in the room (in the classroom and other classrooms). The main contribution to the cost of a handheld computer makes the matrix system with backlight. The most fashionable and at the same time the most expensive - is the matrix LCD with backlight transflective type. These displays are similar to LCD monitors and most advanced "pocket" displays a little inferior to them in specifications. Do Zire 31 screen is made from old STN-technology. STN - a Super Twisted Nematic.STN technology provides torsion angle of orientation of crystals within the matrix of up to 270 °, which allows for fairly good value contrast. Such a display is not able to work from the reflected light, so a lamp backlighting. To reduce the dimensions of the lamp is at the lower edge of the screen, but rather it is a mirror, so the matrix in the center or at the bottom of the brightness is higher than at the edges or the top. Matrix, made by STN technology is a passive one. Passive matrix is a grid of horizontal and vertical wires. Their intersection formed by the points of the raster (pixel), the transparency of which is controlled for each color LCD element. On passive matrix image less clear and sharp than the active. In addition, passive matrix has an appreciable inertia: from moving objects remains a trace, especially noticeable in dynamic games, reading e-books with automatic scrolling. The main difference between an active matrix (TFT) from the passive (STN) is that to control each pixel is added to the transistor. Due to this change of state occurs much faster. Zire 31 screen resolution is low - 160x160 pixels, while the majority of PDAs based on Palm OS display has a resolution of at least 320x320 pixels. Not very impressive size of the matrix - a diagonal of 2.7 ".
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| Resolution - 160x160 pixels |
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| Resolution - 320x320 pixels |
According to our measurements using a special methodology magazine Consumer: computers and programs, the maximum brightness of the display machine is 60Kd/m2. Minimum level of brightness - 24Kd/m2 (40% of the maximum brightness). In general, all - no more brightness levels of this machine is not only the maximum and minimum, just like long-forgotten Palm m515. And what do you need a simple user? Such a limited choice enables not particularly think about the choice of the necessary level of illumination - either 40% or 100%.
You can certainly adjust the contrast of the image, but it does not help much, so safe to say that the levels of illumination in our heroine's only two. Passive matrix type and the side lights and explain the fact that the sunlight to work with computers is almost impossible. The display in this case is a zapravskoe mirror. But when working in the room the contrast grows up to 1:25 and the problems with the perception of any text.
Iron fillings
Since the Zire 31 - still an old diary of my childhood, but in a modern high-tech device, it is not surprising that it should have some additional useful features. First, the diary and address book. Second, the ability to read e-books and art books. Thirdly, the possibility of simple numerical calculations. Fourth, the music player (for entertainment and educational purposes).To provide such high demand, Pocket PC must have a good technical equipment. At that time, as Sony in its budget series uses processors from the company Motorola, palmOne gradually abandons the family of Texas Instruments and switches to Intel. We are talking about had already managed to become obsolete processor Intel XScale PXA255 clocked at 200MHz.
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If we believe the synthetic tests, the new machine a little behind the Sony Clie TJ27/37, but ahead of more expensive palmOne Tungsten E. According to the subjective impressions, with the majority of embedded application software handles well, and play serious games on so inert display is impossible. Therefore, performance-specific requirements and is not presented. RAM is not that much - only 14 MB free, but since there is support for card formats SD, any problems with available memory should not be. In addition, the SD slot to handle the expansion modules in a standard SDIO.
For music lovers there is a connector for stereo headphones, less choosy in terms of sound quality will be pleased built-in polyphonic speaker.
Soft filling
The operating system uses an updated version of Palm OS 5.2.8 - the same as that of the older brother, Zire 72.
On board with Zire 31 - the usual array of software applications to handwriting recognition Graffiti 2 with handwritten inscription of characters in any part of the display. True, no real need for this function is not because there is a physical input area.
