Hewlett Packard Jornada 820 review

Today's notebooks are fast approaching the standards of desktop computers.

However, the high performance of these machines can equate to huge price tags, hefty weights and short-lived batteries. With laptops plagued by all these limitations, it's little wonder handheld PCs are becoming increasingly popular.

The HP Jornada 820 may be one of the largest handheld PCs available, but it is still very much smaller and lighter than most notebooks. In addition, a battery life of up to 10hrs means you won't always be worrying about finding a mains outlet.

HP has obviously put plenty of effort into designing the Jornada. It looks very sleek, and construction is solid - a tough case minimising any bending that could damage the colour LCD display.

In contrast to the vast majority of other handheld PCs, the Jornada 820 is blessed with an almost full-size keyboard and a touch-sensitive glide pad to act as your pointing device.

Traditionally, handheld PCs tend not to run Windows 98 (with the exception of Toshiba's Libretto). More common is the Windows CE system, used here by HP. If you're familiar with Windows 95/98 on a desktop, you'll take to Windows CE like a duck to water. It has the same interface, but behind the familiar looks, it's a highly reduced and compressed version of Microsoft's all-conquering operating system.

Aside from being almost one hundred times smaller than Windows 98, CE has many impressive features. For one, just switch the Jornada on and you can be working in seconds - you don't have to wait ages for it to boot like a notebook. Rather than using a hard disk to store the operating system and data, CE based systems use solid state storage - that is, they use silicon chips. This means that moving parts are not involved in the process, which is therefore much quicker.

Microsoft's popular Office suite of applications has also been compressed to fit into CE-based devices. Though they're quite basic compared with their full blown desktop compatriots, there's easily enough substance to make working on the hoof practical.

The Jornada should not be regarded as a standalone machine. It's best used as a companion to your main desktop computer. Work can be transferred between your main system and the Jornada with the aid of synchronisation software. The cable to link the HP to the serial port on the back of your desktop computer is also supplied, and a built-in modem and phone connector allow you to use the Jornada for e-mail or fax. There's also a USB port, an external monitor connector, and slots for a PCMCIA type II device and CompactFlash memory card.

Hewlett-Packard's Jornada 820 is a remarkable piece of kit with an equally eye-opening asking price. If you tread the tarmac while working, the HP is well worth thinking about, as it will satisfy most users' needs cheaply.

Author: - Ian Robson