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Marshall's Review |
The Philips Velo 500 is an excellent little computer/PDA,
and in many respects is superior to the Sharp Wizard OZ-770.
The Velo/WinCE software is superior. The Velo 500 keyboard is better.
The screen size is larger, and the fonts are adjustable.
However, the Velo 500 also has some negatives. It is simply too
large and heavy to carry in a pocket or purse. Battery life is
measured in hours, whereas battery life for the OZ-770 Wizard is
measured in months.
Conclusions: If you are looking for a smaller substitute for
a notebook computer, the Velo 500 is a great option. It is much lighter
that a notebook, but it can easily be used to work on spreadsheets,
Powerpoint presentations and Word documents. You can't touchtype on the
Velo, but you can do pretty well with two-fingered typing.
But, if you are looking for something to slip in your pocket, and to
keep track of contacts, and to do a little memo writing, the OZ-770
is much more convenient. The long battery life makes it more dependable, too.
Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to find an OZ-770 for a reasonable price.
The Velo 500, and other WinCE units like it, are readily available on
EBay in the $50 to $90 price range. I would like to let the Velo 500
be my OZ-770 replacement, but it is simply too bulky for my pocket.
Finally, if you want something even lighter that the OZ-770, with
a useable keyboard, expandable memory, and thousands of software
programs available, I think you will be hard pressed to find something more
afordable or more practical that the Palm M500 with a Seiko ThumBoard.
This combination can also be purchased on EBay for less than $90,
"new in the box." The M500 and ThumBoard together weigh a mere six ounces,
two ounces less than the OZ-770. The Palm screen is
also more readable (though much smaller) than that of the Velo 500.
That's the end of my Velo 500 review.
For links to similar WinCE handheld computers, go HERE.