For Some Users, BIGGER is BETTER!
I can type on it without looking! I'm 35,000 feet above the southernmost tip of Nevada, just crossing into Arizona. Occasionally I glance out at the snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountain range, but I continue to type out this introduction in Pocket Word, even when looking out the 757's window. You see, I'm using an NEC MobilePro 750C, and it has one of the largest, most typeable keyboards of any H/PC. I'll come back to that, but first, let's take a quick look at the MobilePro.
A large, color-screen H/PC
The MobilePro has a slick silver and gray two-tone case. It's attractive, and stands out on a dark background like a desktop or restaurant tabletop more noticeable and less likely to be left behind accidentally.
It has an 8" diagonal color screen that's relatively easy to read (except in bright sunlight). A color screen sure makes games and web browsing look nice, and it would probably come in handy if you made Pocket Power Point presentations directly from the MobilePro. I like it because it makes ordinary applications like Pocket Outlook and Pocket Word easier to read. Color screen H/PCs use a lot of power. You'll only get up to 8 hours of use with the MobilePro 750C's high capacity Lithium-Ion battery fully charged. Contrast that with 25 hours of use on monochrome-screen MobilePro 700, from an ordinary pair of AA Alkaline batteries. If you need to use your H/PC away from a power source for long hours at a time, and still want a big keyboard, check out the MobilePro 700 and see if you can live with the monochrome screen.
The MobilePro 750C sports an 80 MHz NEC VR4111 processor. It doesn't have the fastest MHz rating of the H/PCs, but it's plenty fast, going quickly from one application to another and loading long documents quickly. Don't pay a lot of attention to megahertz ratings. Get a unit, test it, and see if it feels fast enough for you.
The MobilePro 750C comes with the traditional interface ports, including a Type II PC Card slot, a CompactFlash card slot, a serial port and an IrDA infrared port. It also comes with a VGA port that lets you connect your MobilePro to a video monitor or projector and display color PowerPoint presentations in a larger format. The MobilePro 700 also has this capability and even though the 700 has a monochrome display, it can project color presentations.
The MobilePro 750C comes with an AC adapter, a VGA monitor cable, and an RJ-11 telephone cable for its built-in 33.6 modem. These items are also on the optional accessories list, along with a spare Lithium-Ion battery, a 32 MB PC memory card, a 3-pack of replacement styluses, a carrying case, and the MobilePro "UltraCare" extended service program.
Built-in software
Of course, the MobilePro runs the Windows CE 2.0 operating system and all of its built-in "Pocket" applications. Specific details are in the sidebar, but it's worth mentioning a couple features.
The MobilePro comes with a built-in utility that lets you program it's "Quick Launch" keys. Access this "MobilePro Settings" icon in the Control Panel and select the Quick Launch tab. Associate any built-in or user-installed application with one of the 12 F-keys on the top row of the keyboard. Then, launch your most-used applications with a single key-press.
MobilePro also comes with ParaGraph's CalliGrapher handwriting recognition software pre-installed. It lets you enter characters with pen strokes on the screen. It's a fine program, but I don't quite understand why, with such a typeable keyboard, NEC chose this particular application to pre-install.
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