HP Jornada 680

Advantages Nice keyboard, pretty zippy
Disadvantages Design tradeoffs to save space cause problems

...The HP Jornada 690 is a nice machine, pretty zippy performance-wise, and a much nice keyboard than the 620 / 660 series, which it replaced. But it's not without flaws. Note: the 680 is identical to the 690, except that the 690 has 32MB of memory. First, the card arrangement. CF cards fit into a hinged slot on the bottom of the device. This means that CF add-ons that require a cable won't work unless you use a PC Card adapter. PC Cards on the other hand, fit into a slot on the side, but this space is shared with the CF slot, so the whole assembly is pushed out the bottom of the device. In my opinion, a bad design, although it does save space.The keyboard has a nice tactile feel to it, but they've moved some of they keys around to allow for the smaller size, into places I'm just not used to. The 620LX had a QWERTY layout, and although... Read review

Advantages Portable, synchronisation, screen, has a keyboard, good internet connectivity
Disadvantages Keyboard a bit small

...THIS OPINION IS ABOUT THE JORNADA 720 BECAUSE I COULDN'T FIND THE CATEGORY The HP Jornada is one smart bit of kit - a PDA or palm top, I guess, you'd call it. I got one about a month ago at work and it was a straight choice for me between this and a Palm, but in the end the internet connectivity and the keyboard were what drove me to choose the Jornada and I've not been disappointed. The keyboard is a bit fiddly and my big fingers sometimes get the top two rows of keys mixed up. Also the set does have a nasty habit of falling backwards if you have the top half with the monitor open too far. Those gripes aside, however, I've been very impressed. The major use I've found for the Jornada is keeping my home PC and my work machine synchronised. Once you've got the synchronisation software and processing set up it's an absolute dream... Read review

Advantages Fast, stable, excellent keyboard, excellent built-in software
Disadvantages Slightly murky screen, slightly dodgy PC synchronisation

...applications, which fill the gaps in the original Series 5's suite. The operating system also retains it's legendary stability - I've crashed it only twice in two years. E-Mail is pre-installed on the ROM, which saves around 1Mb of memory. Compared to something like an HP Jornada 680 / 690, this palmtop is *so* snappy. The basic apps like Word, Data, Sheet, Agenda, Jotter and so on load in under a second. THe only apps which take longer are the Web browser and E-mail clients, which initially take about 3 seconds. Once they're loaded, you can switch back and forth between applications instantaneously. One of the best things about the 5mx is that the performance stays high, even when your files are packed with data, and you have 9 or 10 apps open concurrently. No WinCE / PocketPC machine I've seen can do this. Their performance takes a massive hit... Read review