New PDA

[Dindin]

Who's had these already? Are they any good ?

[2yearpostie]

Worse than we had before, you have to switch them on each time you want to scan something.

[Dindin]

Worse than we had before, you have to switch them on each time you want to scan something.

Thanks they sound good

[theargyspy]

Had them a few weeks, they have their own quirks, but all in all a major improvement...I have yet to have one crash on me, they still don't like a drop of rain, the screen becomes unresponsive if it gets wet, not had it out in a real downpour yet & no freezing cold weather either, the battery lasts me from 6.45am till 2.45pm with 30% - 40 % left... the software seems the same as the old one, but with increased RAM it is a lot quicker, I think they FINALLY got the message and have bluetooth turned off by default helping battery life. For me personally I wish they would remap the two buttons on the left, the bottom button is the one to use to scan, whereas my hand, finger wants to use the top one, but guessing I'm likely to get used to the bottom button being used for scanning before they remap the buttons

Before login the screen as a mad hissy fit jumping between portrait and landscape, hoping there is a setting somewhere that stops the screen rotating but yet to find it. Once logged in that doesn't happen anymore

One of my other bugbear of mine with the old PDA as well as the crashing and having to restart was the route suddenly starting up,and a voice telling me to turn around, etc. And having a map on the screen I could never get rid of without re-starting, well that hasn't happened yet on the new one

All in all (so far) I'm liking the new PDA

[theargyspy]

Worse than we had before, you have to switch them on each time you want to scan something.

Been using them for a few weeks, don't recognise that at all, If left for a while it goes to sleep but a quick press of the top button and it's all up and working again, hardly a big problem

[SpacePhoenix]

the battery lasts me from 6.45am till 2.45pm with 30% - 40 % left...

That's probably whee the batteries have exceeded the maximum number of charge cycles. AFAIK rechargeable batteries have a maximum number of charge cycles after which the ability of the battery to hold its charge diminishes

[Grumpyoldmailman]

A big improvement. One think I have noticed though is they are not so good for knocking doors with, to get the required knock I fear breaking it.

[Iknockedtwice]

We’ve been using them for a couple of weeks and they’re much quicker, thinner and lighter than the old ones.
Battery life is excellent.
One gripe is the screen rotation thing, it’s annoying having to watch it flip round.
They work in the old holsters fine if you enlarge two of the holes.
In my opinion they’re a big improvement though I’ve not used one on a wet day yet.

[Mr Rush]

but with increased RAM it is a lot quicker

The old saying on the PC: What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh.

The previous PDAs were responsive too when they were first rolled out, but RM kept tacking more and more onto the Frontline application till it bogged down and became borderline unusable at times. The bountiful 8GB of RAM is just waiting to be consumed by bad programming and feature bloat so we'll probably be right back here in another five years. It's the same reason websites loaded faster under dial-up than they do now.

That said; as it stands I can't complain too much, other than fighting the screen rotation when trying to unlock it.

[SpacePhoenix]

but with increased RAM it is a lot quicker

The old saying on the PC: What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh.

The previous PDAs were responsive too when they were first rolled out, but RM kept tacking more and more onto the Frontline application till it bogged down and became borderline unusable at times. The bountiful 8GB of RAM is just waiting to be consumed by bad programming and feature bloat so we'll probably be right back here in another five years. It's the same reason websites loaded faster under dial-up than they do now.

That said; as it stands I can't complain too much, other than fighting the screen rotation when trying to unlock it.

RM need to separate some stuff into separate apps. Delivery stuff as 1 app, maybe indoor DO stuff as another app, MC stuff as another app, maybe traffic recording as another and collections as another app.

When the old PDAs ask you to select a location, why isn't all that crap already in place. Very few PDAs will be used by multiple offices

[Murdoch]

but with increased RAM it is a lot quicker

The old saying on the PC: What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh.

The previous PDAs were responsive too when they were first rolled out, but RM kept tacking more and more onto the Frontline application till it bogged down and became borderline unusable at times. The bountiful 8GB of RAM is just waiting to be consumed by bad programming and feature bloat so we'll probably be right back here in another five years. It's the same reason websites loaded faster under dial-up than they do now.

That said; as it stands I can't complain too much, other than fighting the screen rotation when trying to unlock it.

Almost certainly, there's not a huge amount of difference between the PDAs and a normal Android Phone. Security Updates for any version of Android only last a few years. There is planned obsolescence with all these devices.

The old PDAs were fairly underpowered from the start, it was fairly dated tech when we first got them (when compared to the hardware in the average person's phone). They didn't even have a multi-point touch screen, which is why the touchscreen struggles to work when it rains. They only register a single touch at a time. And fails to work, when it's touched at 2 or more places at a time.

Many older people couldn't hold the device without also touching the screen, which is why it would never work when they tried to sign for their parcel.

[SpacePhoenix]

The current PDAs, the basic PDA and software are standard. I know Hermes use them and iirc Wightlink use them. Each company will have it's own apps/software on the top of Android

[theargyspy]

Quick update on my original review....today scanned a recorded delivery, the screen went blank, completely unresponsive, after lots of button pushing the PDA rebooted, admittedly quicker than the old one but obviously had to put in login details again so a real PITA hopefully not going back to the bad old PDA days

[SpacePhoenix]

Quick update on my original review....today scanned a recorded delivery, the screen went blank, completely unresponsive, after lots of button pushing the PDA rebooted, admittedly quicker than the old one but obviously had to put in login details again so a real PITA hopefully not going back to the bad old PDA days

That's a software issue. We seem to get more and more often the screen goes black apart from the icons at the top and bottom, then it reboots. They seem more prone to crashing in hot weather

[ssdd]

Been using it a few days now. Thinner and lighter. Easier to carry. Dropped it once already. Small divet out of the top hand corner....yikes! Don't think the plastic casing is as robust as the last one.

Has randomly logged me out just like the last one did, albeit quicker to log back in, though not as much as I'd hoped.

Screen rotation on lock screen. Why!?. Swipe up to unlock requires much more input now. A finger up the whole screen as opposed to a quick flick (ooh err Missus).

Battery life good, but what'll it be like after a year? Can't comment on performance in wet, though I suspect it'll be much the same as last one.