Internet access with either the Logic Plant custom browser or Internet Explorer, which is supplied as part of Windows CE 5, is marred by the size of the screen. Although you can zoom in to see areas of a page, by the time you get anywhere near 1:1, the area you're looking at is small, so you'll be panning around it constantly.
Small screen browsing requires a lot of panning around
The screen layout and operation of the many functions on the Mintpad is well conceived and stylus response from the touchscreen is positive. Time and again, though, we came back to being frustrated with the size of the screen. For video playback and particularly for Web access, it really is too small. You're forever zooming in and out for even the most basic information.
Verdict
The Mintpad has an excellent feature-set and is easy to use, but that screen really is small. The focus on the notepad facility, which is more developed than in other PMPs, is a clever differentiator. Indeed, a Mintpad with an iPhone-sized screen would be hard to ignore. ®
More Touchscreen PMP Reviews...
Samsung YP-R1 |
Apple iPod Touch |
Archos 5 |
O2 Joggler |
Mintpass Mintpad
COMMENTS
Kind of cute.
I'm thinking handy for the Korean businessman who wants an interactive crib sheet to remind him who someone is and why knowing them might be useful (with an attached photo). And 4 hours video play is pretty impressive for its size (how thick is it again?)
Just a thought.
CE5?
wow... CE5 is pretty old, but I guess that gives modern hardware an advantage.
would be interesting to see this with a current version of CE and the IE version from the ZuneHD... most of the touch phones have really lost the PalmPilot ease of use for quickly scribbling down a shopping list or writing some notes on the fly.
Why is showing WEP/WPA passcodes a blunder?
These things aren't like passwords at all - they're shared secrets which are mostly designed to keep people outside the building from accessing your network - if they're on your computer they probably have all the access they need. The WEP ones in particular are stupidly difficult to type if you can't see what you're typing, and if they get stored in your keychain (Ubuntu pointlessness), then you can't get online without either pointlessly typing in your password halfway through the boot process or unsecuring all the rest of your passwords.
Can it play media from networked storage?
According to tech support, "no"
Wider use..?
"Internet Explorer, which is supplied as part of Windows CE 5"
Wonder if it would be possible to run the core shell desktop and open this little baby up to PDA apps..?
