David MacKay
.






Which Psion 3a to get

I bought a 512K then gave it away and bought a 1M after a couple of months. Here is why...

I bought the 512K first because I didn't want a Patience game and I wanted a low battery consumption. The 512K only takes about 26mA, which is significantly less than the 1M and 2M. However, once I loaded on JBdata and any one other useful application, I found I had to continually squeeze my memory usage to avoid running out. 512K just isn't enough if you want to add more software.

When I bought the new 1M, I chose it rather than a 2M on the assumption that the current drawn would increase uniformly with the memory size. This is not so. Both the 1M and the 2M in fact draw 46mA, so this was a bogus choice.

Another reason for wanting a 1M or 2M is that it has the spell checker on board, which may come in handy.

I am finding I am happy with just 1M rather than 2M, but I can believe that I will run out again soon enough.

The Psion 3c came out about two months after I bought my 1M psion 3a. I think I am content with the 3a.

In the UK they refuse to sell the version with the backlit screen, so the only thing in its favour is a new agenda feature allowing you to see a month at a time (just like the agenda on the old Psion 3 in fact!).


Site last modified Tue Dec 27 09:27:43 GMT 2011