Review of my first wireless experience

[intruder]

Hello people,

I just came back from the US yesterday and installed my linksys 802.11b router along with all the wireless adapters for my devices (pc, laptop, nx). I have to tell that it's an impressing experience the first time I got this wireless thing right.

As far as the CLIÉ is concerned, here are my remarks:

:D THE GOOD


Decent browsing with netfront, PTL errors are annoying but perhaps moving to MS with powerrun will help. Could login to my company's intranet without much trouble. Loaded reports OK and most of the forms work well.
E-mail is awesome. I can download my corporate e-mail, as well as other secondary accounts, each on its own folder. Filters are cool too, I can download just the emails I'm interested in (no mailing lists)
Office support... with QuickOffice supporting native files on MS it's an appealing idea now so I can load excel spreadsheets on the road... can docs to go do something like this???
I could get ssh (Topgun SSH) connections with my servers, a bit annoying with the small screen and square fonts but definitely a life saver for emergencies.


:( THE BAD


No Hotmail, nor decent MSN Messenger, PalmMSN basically sucks big time (any other free msn client... maybe through jabber or something like that???). Also if anyone knows how to get hotmail to work I'd greatly appreciate it so it would move this point to the "THE GOOD" section ;)
RAM SUCKS... just that the 11 MB available seem to be filled so fast when you have about 100 company emails to be downloaded. Can CLIE mail be moved to MS? with or without powerrun?
Lack of status monitor for the card... would be nice an icon in the status bar or some app to monitor strenght of the signal, statistics and stuff like that.
Netfront... I seem to be developing a love/hate relationship with this one... tried webprov but crashed my clie.


:mad: THE UGLY


MEMORY: did I mention that 11MB are just not enough???


Conclusion

Maybe I'm missing something, if there's some way to move bad points to good points let me know. Otherwise, I think this is pretty much the impressions of a wireless clie experience on a regular user. I'm a lot into tech stuff (RHCE here) but mostly servers... so my pda exprience is relatively new (had a m105 for about 6 months then moved to the NX60 about a month ago).

I'll appreciate any new insight in my observations. Recommendations are welcome as well.

Carlos

[patrickl]

I have about the same experience.

Netfront is the best browser available, but somehow it's just not the same as browsing on a pc.

Another thing that I found very cool was an FTP client and Win-Hand (and/or a VNC solution). Dowloading files directly on the Clie is just the coolest. Should be able to unzip and install apps right from the web. Win-Hand is also very cool. When I need to check up on my PC I just conect to it and watch what it is doing. Very cool during long installs or other long jobs.

The 11MB sux bigtime indeed, but I put most apps on the Memory Stick and then you can go on installing apps almost indefinately. It just starts a tad slower, but then most apps I never use anyway. With JackFlash you also might get a few MB extra if you move some apps to flash.

I found the power drain kinda annoying too. It might be caused by bad reception for me but it feels like I drain the battery in an hour or so while working wireless. Especially Win-Hand seems to suck the battery dry quicker than I'd ever imagined. I know have the cradle standing near the couch in the living room and I often connect the little power adapter straight into the NX to keep it going for longer.

[n2ifp]

Very good guys. Keep in mind, that I am a bonified NetFront hater and in my humble opinion is the worst browser and app ever on a clie, next to clie viewer. Sony's version of torture:D!

[intruder]

the power drain hasn't been that much of an issue for me... so far the wireless stuff has been like 75% e-mail 25% web and others... so download/read offline/send cycle isn't that punishing on the battery...

n2ifp... what browser would you recommend??? that doesn't crash the nx by the way

[patrickl]

There is no real alternative for Netfront. At least I have seen none yet. WebProv works semi OK for me, but it can show a lot less sites than Netfront (Webprov gives me more problems with site sizes then Netfront) PocketLink did work for a while and then a new version started crashing (apparently newer updates do not crash anymore, but I just don't care for it) PocketLink and Webprov completely chew up the site you are browsing and spit it out in random order.

Besides if you switch everything off in Netfront it can view almost any site, but then in the same crappy layout as the proxy browsers seem to "render"stuff. But at least it's free, still works better (faster, on more sites) than the others and you have the option to get a proper view now and then. I'd rather have the options then to go out and buy a browser that is even more crappy as the lowest settings in Netfront will give me for free.

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by intruder
the power drain hasn't been that much of an issue for me... so far the wireless stuff has been like 75% e-mail 25% web and others... so download/read offline/send cycle isn't that punishing on the battery...

n2ifp... what browser would you recommend??? that doesn't crash the nx by the way

I have been on a quest for a better browser that also has widescreen capability. There is no excuse IMHO that we can't have something better. All NetFront did was frustrate the heck out my brother and I. Pages never fully load and everytime you need to scroll around or read it with any clarity, I had to keep switching modes and views. It'd take me all day just to visit one web site for news or weather. Blazer and PLink II have worked the best for me. Yes, on some pages the web page can get fragmented, but at least the darn thing loads. NetFront's crappy performance really aggravates me to no end(in case you couldn't tell). The PPC is one area where it has the Palm beat, web pages use to load up nicely, although slow with a dial-up way back when.

You can also find WebProV here if you want to play with it:

http://leggnet.com/clie/

[intruder]

that's where I got webprov from... crashed miserably my nx... sticking with netfront for a while... I've found out that it loads decently about 80% of the sites I see... and then, almost all major sites have a pda friendly edition and I can check my yahoo webmail and company's intranet....

this basically means that works good enough for me... may be not to some of you...

my quest right now is concentrated in Hotmail and MSN Messenger...

Carlos

[intruder]

what are you using then?

[profvisor]

I run clie mail from the memory stick with powerrun.... no problem

PalmMSN isn't the best interface, and it is annoying that you can't do anything else while using it. But, for a free program I will live with it. I liked verichat better (though you have to keep it on that screen there too given the OS) but I refuse to pay a yearly fee for a free chat system...

[intruder]

do you know of any other free msn client? as you said, palm msn sucks and I'm not willing to pay for an already free service

[gyffes]

For what it's worth, Clie-Apps forum's ongoing BrowserBattle seems to be 'tween NetFront and Blazer. At least check Blazer out 'fore you give up browsin' entirely.