Oregon Scientific PDA 188

...with various budget brands, Sharp, Oregon etc, all promising the PC link as an optional extra, but which, on trying to get hold of one from the original dealer, always failed to materialise.

To a certain extent, this didn’t matter too much since I only ever wanted an organiser to act as an address book for me, and possibly a currency translator. Losing my data and having to start all over again at a later date was a bit of a chore ...
...to from a PC. The Oregon Scientific PDA188 is exactly what I’ve been looking for. At £20, it is DEFINITELY what I’ve been looking for! You can also buy it packaged by Boots at the moment for the same price.

So what do you get for your £20? - 256K of memory* touch-screen organiser, with Telephone Number\Address Book, Scheduler, Memo Pad, International Time\Alarm Clock, Calendar, Calculator and Currency Converter.

*Curiously, ... more

When I had an office job, I always used to have a personal electronic organiser, back in the days when they had minuscule keyboards.

This tended to render them practically useless for data input, so something with a data cable to link to a PC was very desirable, allowing use of a “proper” keyboard.

I tinkered with various budget brands, Sharp, Oregon etc, all promising the PC link as an optional extra, but which, on trying to get hold of one from the original dealer, always failed to materialise.

To a certain extent, this didn’t matter too much since I only ever wanted an organiser to act as an address book for me, and possibly a currency translator. Losing my data and having to start all over again at a later date was a bit of a chore though.

Then things started to get silly. Organisers became PDAs, personal digital assistants, and some even sprouted “proper” keyboards, albeit rather small, like the Psion range.

Of course these also had pretensions to be a PC, with built in word processing and spreadsheet facilities. For a while, I had one of these, never made any use of the new features, and then lost interest when it started going faulty.

If I’m honest, what I’ve been looking for all along is an electronic address book that can be input to from a PC. The Oregon Scientific PDA188 is exactly what I’ve been looking for. At £20, it is DEFINITELY what I’ve been looking for! You can also buy it packaged by Boots at the moment for the same price.

So what do you get for your £20? - 256K of memory* touch-screen organiser, with Telephone Number\Address Book, Scheduler, Memo Pad, International Time\Alarm Clock, Calendar, Calculator and Currency Converter.

*Curiously, the Boots version claims to be 384K but is identical in every other way.

It is an attractive and very compact unit – one of the advantages of having done away with a real keyboard. Construction seems good with the front screen frame being of satin metal. A slide-in stylus is provided in a slot to the case, which allows for “prodding” of the various virtual “buttons”. Its most frequently used features also have a full-blown “real” button on the front panel, as well as two for scrolling up and down records. The actual screen only shows three lines of type so you get to do quite a lot of scrolling. I don’t mind however, as this saves me reaching for my reading glasses just to see the screen!

Most importantly, you also get the serial cable link for a PC and the accompanying software on CD-ROM. This is very easy to set up. Input of records is so much easier from your PC, as keying in via the touch-screen tends to get a bit tedious like sending a load of lengthy SMS messages!

The software/hardware link allows for three kinds of update. In the event of a clash between what's on PC and on the PDA, you can opt for "retain PC info", "retain PDA info" or "retain both" options as a means of making sure that the latest data is being used. It really depends on where you last updated your records, on the PC or on the PDA.

My wife and I bought one each with a view to sharing the C:\drive data. My wife has no need of the Scheduler, so there was no risk of getting ourselves confused over appointments. At first this gave me a problem, as I couldn't seem to load up the second machine from the PC. I guess the software registered the fact that it had no reason to, since no records had been changed. Making a minor change to one record led to that record alone being downloaded to PDA.

The answer lay with the Backup/Restore facility. By using Restore, I was able to make a complete dump of all data on the PC to the PDA, amid the usual warnings that you are going to over-write all PDA data, (of which there was none!). If you are going to use your PC for all input, then using this method is probably simpler.

NIFTY FEATURES

You can use the calendar as a means of dipping into the scheduler at a given date, rather than scrolling through records.

There are three separate Phone/Address books, useful if you share the organiser or want to separate work from home.

The address book allows for all the latest sorts of entries, including three telephone numbers and an e-mail address.

Not only is the PDA188 linkable to its own software, but also it is also compatible with standard PIMs software like MS Outlook.

My version will present its menus in English, French, or Spanish, and other models have different combinations.

NOT SO NIFTY FEATURES

Despite its tri-lingual aspirations, there are still no foreign (non-English) characters, e.g. with accents, on the keyboard though. These are quite often lost when writing in upper-case anyway, but I can think of several examples where this could lead to confusion. One good one is the contrast between COCO and COCÔ in Portuguese. One is coconut and the other is baby-pooh! See what I mean? Note for Portuguese speakers: Don't use the Memo Pad function to jot down the recipe for a Piña Colada!

Before anyone gets excited over the currency converter, it only translates the fixed rate set between the € and its European currencies, like Pesetas or Deutschmarks. This will only be of use whilst the first rush of “what’s that in old money?” questions abounds within Euroland. There is no means of setting a different rate, say between £sterling and the €. You have however got a calculator so all is not lost, just a bit less convenient.

Don’t do what I did and input loads of data to the PDA via the stylus in advance of setting up the software. I did this on holiday, but the records didn’t seem to want to upload, via the usual route.

Using the Backup facility that I mentioned earlier would have worked, but without a PC, I didn't know that at the time, and the written instructions are very scant in this area, since it all comes clearer once you've got the software loaded!

The PC based software creates a “.mdb” file of data, so yours truly got all excited about the possibility of using MS Access to look at the tables, and possibly even transferring existing address data from an Access database. However, the file is not a compatible format, and Access refuses to load it. Shame, but at least I know where the file is, so that it can be added to my back-up process.

CONCLUSION

These are minor niggles on what is, after all, a £20 product which looks and feels like it costs a lot more. If your main use for a PDA is the retention of address and work schedule information, then this could be for you. The fact that it comes complete with all you need to start linking it to a PC is an added bonus.

p.s. The Boots version comes in a very nice semi-transparent package suitable for Christmas gift purposes, if you get my meaning, and in view of the increased memory capacity, I’d try to track one of these down if you can. They are currently nestling in the Christmas Gifts section at my local Boots. You can view the PDA188 in its Oregon guise at http://www.oregonscientific.co.uk/products.asp?cat=3, where you will be informed that it is availible at Debenhams

 

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