Toshiba e740 Pocket PC

Really love this item, I had to retire my old one, This item was a life saver, Now I have to stock up on the batteries.. Thank You

Ok. So I bought this PDA for myselft as a gift.I chose this model because a friend at work reallyrecommended it as "The Best" at the time. This wasone time where I didn't do my homework and it bit mein the ...Ok. To be fair, on the surface it looks like this thinghas everything. Built in CF, Built in WiFi, ReplacableBattery... etc.. But for every positive there is a "gotcha!"or a catch.Long story short I returned it an got an Ipaq 3900. Am veryhappy now. But let me tell you my specific gripes with the e740.1. Screen ... You are going to be looking at the screenquite a lot right??? Who cares what you have under the hood, ifit looks [awful] (bad, uneven lighting, color is off to blue).2. Speaker .... Tinny at best. Very small, quiet. Hey meybeits just me, but my PDA is got to be an all in one gadget. One of the uses I need is for it to wake me up. This thing did not come close.3. WiFi (hmmm). Problems connecting, dropping connection. What's the point? (nuff said).4. Record function. First of all this thing really sticks out. Who designed this??? I kept turning it on by mistake. To make it worse, my had a mic problem. It kept making thumping sounds in the background (I tried turning the dynamic gain off, not much help). I went online and found out I wasn't the only one with the problem.These are the problems I had in the 2 days I owned the thing.I was so frustrated I went online and found out other "irritants" that people were reporting, which I won't go into here. Just look. Plus this thing was originally recalled, ok? it says something about the testing of a product. It's just sloppy.So where is the advantage. There is just one. The attachable docking thingy (if you need that sort of thing). It's good for a business person who needs it. I don't.GET AN IPAQ INSTEAD...Like I said earlier, I got an Ipaq. I went to a store and justcompared. The screen is beautiful, the colors ... wow wow wow.The battery on the Ipaq is great. I got a sleve for the CF memory (not a problem, its real thin), Extra juice, its in the sleeve. Need more juice, get more batteries for the sleeve. Same processor, great memory. Great speaker (loud :) )... Recordbutton won't be turned on by mistake. Sleek well thought out through and through. No dissapointments. Plus... Extra software (Nevo remote, Backup...), Auto Light sensor (automatically adjust backlight if you want), Two mic (one on top, one in front), Power button on the face so you wont turn it on by mistake. The toshiba seems flimsy compared to this.That's my take. Hope it helps.

Having owned several PDAs (Sharp OZ-9500, 2 Palm OS Devices, a Cassiopeia A-11 (Windows CE HPC), and a Cassiopeia E-125) I find it difficult to become terribly excited when an new model hits the market. This unit is an exceptionIn a nutshell, the e740 lives up to its claims without a hitch.Battery life is excellent with the WiFi disabled, and acceptable with it enabled (I haven't complely drained the battery and have ran the 802.11b and the frontlight concurrently for over 2 hours at a time), DHCP works nicely and I have no issues migrating between multiple access points.Wireless synchronization seems to be quicker than through the USB cradle, and eliminates the need to buy multiple cradles if a WAP is available.The screen is on par with the iPaq, wonderful outdoors, but is not quite as crisp INDOORS as my Casio E-125. (The E-125's screen is completely unreadable in bright sunlight)The Windows Terminal Services client is an interesting novelty, but its usefulness is a bit limited due to screen size. It could, however be useful to connect and kill an errant process on an XP box remotely...The performance is excellent, though it does not appear to be twice as fast as it's StrongARM competitors. Windows Media Player video is far superior on this device than any others, but not quite up to par with the claimed 30FPS from the ATI description of this unit's internal video hardware. (This might simply be that WMP does not support the video accelleration).The unit seems sturdy, and is primarily metal. The application buttons are embossed, and well placed. The stylus is acceptable, but a bit difficult to remove from its holder. There is no cover on the bottom connector, though the cover on my E-125 is usually open anyhow.The unit's only weaknesses are mostly superficial annoyances. The IR port is on the lower lefthand side and is easy to cover with your hand. The note/record button on the left hand side is the most serious design flaw, as it extends slightly from the case. I have recorded many worthless audio clips of ambient noise, random conversation, passing busses, etc, simply because of this questionable button placement. The speaker is a bit weak, but this seems true of all PPC 2002 devices, excepting the iPAQs. Also, pressing the thumbwheel no longer brings up the start menu as it did on the E-125 (perhaps a PPC 2002 issue), making it ultimately less useful. Otherwise, I find no real weaknesses.Software compatibility is acceptable, as this PDA runs nearly everything intended for an iPaq, though some key mappings in games may need changes. Some games, such as Rayman will not run on this device yet due to the new video hardware, however, when games specifically for the new ATI chipset and the XScale processor are released, this will be the ultimate gaming PDA.Overall, this is a sleek, quick, powerful and well designed device. Though I have typically favored Casio's devices, Toshiba has impressed me. I chose the e740 over the Sharp Zaurus ZX-5500, a tough decision since the idea of Linux and an integrated Keyboard on a PDA is quite appealing. Comparing with a coworker's Zaurus, I believe I made the correct decision.The upcoming X-Scale iPaq, aside from its new transreflective screen, seems overpriced ($100-$200 more depending on bluetooth integration), clunky (it still has the form factor of the current iPaq 5800s, requiring a sleeve for CF), and still lacks the WiFi. Also consider, no insult intended, Bluetooth is generally useless due to its short range, and has generally flopped in the US market. If you really need it, there is an SDIO card for the Toshiba already available.If you can justify the price, buy this PDA. If you are still clinging to your PalmOS device, borrow someone's PocketPC and you will realize that Microsoft's Department of Annoyance apparently overlooked the Windows CE/PocketPC world, and in comparison, the PalmOS devices seem like children's toys (even the high end Clie w/camera) -- no insult or flaming intended (I loved my Palm III, but times have changed). This PDA outclasses its nearest competiton by a tremendous margin, and with only slight shortcomings has ushered in what seems to be the first in a new era of wireless PDAs.

I read the reviews, thought I'd take a shot. Built-in WIFI was the seller for me.Got the unit, and despite some of the reviewer's luck in using the wireless, I found it to be flawless. Worked beautifully, good range and good strength compared to my notebook computer.Battery was the problem, though. It started out like the "good" reviews - lasted a while (2 hours only used 25% of it w/o wireless), and with the wireless going, I could surf, remotely control my servers, or do email and messaging for over 2 hours and still have battery time left over.Then suddenly it would go from full charge to 1% and give me warnings about imminent data loss. I contacted Toshiba Tech support, who made me jump through some hoops I had already jumped through on my own, and they offered to replace the battery. But they're backordered - 2-4 weeks *minimum* wait. The battery issue is a *known* issue and isn't a guaranteed fix. There *is* no guaranteed fix for this known issue... So rather than wait to see if the battery fixed the problem, I'm returning the unit before it's too late.Unit was great, but as long as Toshiba is pushing things out the door that they know are defective, it's going to be tough for them to compete.