Comparison of Pocket PCs for tuning

[Mark Story]

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