Why a Revo?

In which delusional looks closer at how he came by his Revo.

A Decent Cause

I had been lured into the world of the PDA by inertia, who lent me his 3c. However, after having access to Jason’s Series5, I decided that I’d have to give up resisting, and go and buy myself one of these little machines.

Now, after the initial decision to buy a PDA, I had to decide what kind. With Jason as a friend, a Psion was the obvious choice. But then came the difficult choice - should I get a Revo or a 5MX?

After much thought and research I decided upon the Revo. Why did I do this? Read on and it shall become clear…

The First Musings

First, I’ll introduce you to the reasons I wanted a PDA, which were discovered whilst using the 3c.

• Agenda - probably top of my list.
• Spreadsheet - for keeping track of my money and for physics experiments.
• Word processing - otherwise it would be difficult to be typing this now!
• Games - yup, seems trivial sometimes, but you don’t think that when you’re stuck on a train… (I can agree there - inertia)
• Addresses - so I could stop pestering those around me when it comes to addressing stuff.

Anyway, list of stuff I wanted to do didn’t narrow down the choice, as both machines offer the same set of apps. Apart from inbuilt games, at which the Revo wins hands-down. Cascade is much better than Bombs, I think we all agree.

For the Look of the Thing

So, after learning that both machines did what I needed, next factors were the actual build of the machine (sizes etc.), how it looked and, of course, price.

Looking at the machines themselves, the Revo wins hands down. It’s smaller, and generally more gorgeous. However, the Revo has a smaller screen and keyboard. It also lacks a backlight. Having used Jason’s 5, I knew just how good the keyboard was, although the screen didn’t seem so much larger. The quality of the screen on the Revo is much better than either the 5 or the 5MX (testing in Dixons confirmed this!).

I also had to think about the price. Being a student, money isn’t endless, so the 5MX had to do a lot more to justify the extra money. Even though the keyboard and screen were very tempting, as well as the expansion slots, I didn’t think that they justified the extra money. The backlight did offer more competition, but after using the Revo for over a month now, I’ve never felt that I really needed one, so I’m glad I wasn’t swayed too much by that.

How the Plus was not to be

The RevoPlus had also just arrived, and this was a very interesting proposition, with the extra 8MB of RAM. However, I decided against the Plus, and here’s a quick explanation of why…

As you’ll know by now, Jason has an original 5. This means that he has just 8MB of RAM, as the Revo has. The RevoPlus comes with the same amount of RAM as the 5MX Before anyone complains, I know you can expand the memory of the 5. I had kept an eye on how happy Jason was with his 8MB, and he never seemed really stressed about the lack of it. This caused me to reason that an extra £50 probably wasn’t worth it for an extra 8MB, even if I’d also get a copy of Opera…which is great, btw! To be truthful, I haven’t missed the extra memory, and I tend to keep the number of installed apps down anyway (that’s what comes of being a hardened Windows user!).

Anyway, so that is why I didn’t go for the RevoPlus.

In Hindsight

The Revo’s small size is a great benefit for me, as it means I can just carry it in my pocket, which would not be possible with a 5. Also when I have the Revo out, and Jason has the 5 out, mine is the one people go ‘wow’ at, and for me, as Jason will tell you, that is a large attraction!

To sum up, I’m very glad I went for the Revo, it was cheaper and much more suited to my style than the 5MX, but, as always, you have to put the time in to find out which machine is best for you. My two months with the 3c helped me a lot in deciding what I needed the Psion for, and my time asking Jason questions and messing in Dixons (even if it does make you hated by the staff!) was worthwhile because I’m happy with my choice and not thinking ‘why didn’t I go for the other one…’. Which is, in the end, what matters.

delusional