I have a Casio Cassiopeia EM-500 and have tried the Pocket TuneLab demo and it works like a charm. If you are looking at the Cassiopeia, you should buy the E-125 which uses Compact Flash cards and has standard 32mb internal RAM rather than 16mb for the EM-500. When I bought my unit there was $100 price difference between the two, but now are priced the same - $399.95, significantly less than the iPAQ. You can get more info here - https://www.casio.com/personalpcs/ . Mark Story. RPT Eastern Washington University Cheney, Washington -----Original Message----- From: owner-pianotech@ptg.org [mailto:owner-pianotech@ptg.org] On Behalf Of Robert Scott Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 7:48 PM To: pianotech@ptg.org Subject: Comparison of Pocket PCs for tuning Having had the opportunity to develop TuneLab for both the Compac iPAQ and the Cassio Cassiopeia and to use them for actual tuning, I would like the share my findings with those of you considering the purchase of one of these devices for use with TuneLab or the Pocket RCT. The Compac iPAQ is the most expensive Pocket PC, although it is now being discounted, as are the other Pocket PCs. It has the fastest processor of any of the Pocket PCs, but the difference is not great. The screen has five levels of brightness, including the lowest level where the backlight is turned off completely. Since it takes more power to run a bright backlight, the best battery life is achieved with the backlight turned off. The iPAQ screen is quite readable in average ambient lighting without using the backlight, but if you are tuning in dim lighting, expect to use at least some backlight. The most annoying thing about the iPAQ is its rounded bottom which makes it impossible to stand it up on its own. It likes to rest flat on its back or on its side. This is perhaps one reason why Dean felt it necessary to develop an alternate sideways display for the Pocket RCT. The Cassio Cassiopeia has a rectangular case so it is a little easier to stand up. Its screen has five levels of brightness, but the backlight cannot be turned off completely. If you plan on tuning outdoors in bright sunlight, do not buy the Cassio. Even with the backlight set to maximum the screen is unreadable in these conditions. Unlike the iPAQ, the Cassio screen cannot make use of ambient lighting. However, in most indoor venues the screen is quite readable even with minimum backlighting. One nice thing that only the Cassio has is a second backup battery. This backup battery cannot run the unit, but it will at least keep all the memory alive if you should completely run down your main battery. (The iPAQ only has one battery and if that runs down completely then you lose everything that was stored in the unit.) I did a side-by-side battery life comparison of the two Pocket PCs running TuneLab Pocket. (The battery life depends on what kind of program is running.) Both units were set for their minimum backlighting, which means completely off for the iPAQ and the lowest level for the Cassio. Starting from a full charge, here is how they did: Cassiopeia iPAQ ---------- ---- 6:30 5:00 Time when "low battery" warning appears 6:45 6:30 Time when unit goes off As you can see, even with its backlight on, the Cassiopeia had slightly longer battery life. It is somewhat disturbing that the Cassiopeia offered only a 15 minute grace period from the low battery warning to the unit going off. But then the backup battery makes that a less serious event with the Cassiopeia. If your tuning day involves more than five hours of tuning, you probably should invest in a charger that plugs in your car, or else plan on using the AC adapter at some sites. I am by no means an expert in the use of Pocket PCs, but if anyone has any questions regarding these units I will do my best to answer them. Robert Scott Real-Time Specialties
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