HP Jornada 560

The HP Jornada 560 is an excellent way to organize your life without paying for unnecessary features. It's a powerful, capable tool that costs less than a quarter of what you can pay for a newer, comparable personal digital assistant. I love mine and look forward to using it daily for years to come, as I did with my first HP Jornada.

Versatile, small in size, great value if its features suit you.

Have been using the HP568 64mb RAM product for years; it practically runs my life. Now that it's ten years old technology, there may be more versatile devices out there, but the HP568 serves my needs well so I continue to use it -- and it's cheap on Ebay.

The best things about it are its handheld size and its versatility. It has just about everything you need built-in to do administrative stuff.

You can get a CF camera card, FM radio card, GPS card, and WIFI cards for it, so you can even surf the net on it! It's very much like having a desktop computer in a handheld size. Great for purse or pocket.

It has mini versions of Word and Excel on it; it's amazing how much work I get done on it anywhere INDOORS.

Using it OUTDOORS is another matter; like most displays on such gadgets, it is useless outdoors unless you can angle the display just right at the sun, when you can sort of make it out. Fortunately, I rarely NEED to use it in the sun.

Display is glass; if you break it, say goodbye.

The built-in "Access Panel" software works with Word and Excel; it's very much like "Autotext" in Word; you can store text in it for plugging in anywhere. VERY handy, and saves LOTS of time. Built-in OmniSolve program includes conversions, scientific calculator, functions, date calculations and other things -- very useful. Built in backup program works well.

The built-in calendar is AMAZING -- some of the best software I've ever seen. Also has Active Synch, so you can synchronize your calendar, favorites/bookmarks, and files with your desktop!

Media Explorer is built in, so you can listen to music, recorded books, view photos, and so forth.

I use an 8GB (!!) CF card in it; it can't use a bigger card; the file directories won't display properly. A minor inconvenience.

A BIG gripe with it is that it will handle only one level of subdirectories from within a program (though you can get at nested subdirectories with File Explorer). E.G.:

>Cars

A way to get around this is to use leading character(s) subdirectories. E.G.:

>Cars_Chevrolet
>Cars_Ford
. . . and so on

The top cover’s plastic hinge is frail. Expect to break it, which is why you want to get a durable case for it; Targus makes several good ones.

A full-size Targus keboard that folds up to about 4 x 5 x 3/4" is available and amazing to watch fold up. You have to pound on the keys fairly hard, and the cradle that holds the HP568 is a little fragile, but you can pound out lots of text with it.

The dock works well to charge and synch; buy several and spread them around where you use the PDA a lot. Cig and 110 VAC chargers available for car and wall outlet.

I recommend that you use .RTF for Word files and Excel 97--2003 format for Excel; you'll run into some problems with later versions.

Stock battery is good for about 2 to 3 hours, depending on how bright you have the backlit display set. A double thick battery is available that will double that -- and the bulk and weight.

It has version 1 of Acrobat Reader built-in, but I've been unable to use it; it doesn't work with anything. I like to carry the manuals for some of my equipment with me.

Has a pretty good graphics program, but requires paying a fee, and I don't know if the company is even around anymore.

Despite its shortcomings, it's a hell of a good value for the money.

A Device That Was Ahead Of It's Time

I believe that HP made a very serious mistake by discontinuing this Pocket PC and taking off with the Compaq version. The Compaq version has failed and selling for a little or nothing. The Jornada is still in demand and holding some value, even 5 years after they were discontinued.

Amazing

I am a buisness man, i work for ibm. i have used this machine everyday for the past two and a half years. it has never broken down on me, it gets the job done, and i love the mp3 player. a great buy.

MY HP JORNADA 568

THIS IS A VERY STURDY UNIT AND I WOULD RECOMEND IT TO ANY ONE.
I HAVE OWNED ONE OF THISE UNITS AND PURCHASED ON USED ON EBAY FOR MY GIRL FRIND FOR A GIFT.
MY FREND HAS AN IPAQ AND OFTEN ASK IF I WOULD LIKE TO TRADE (HE LIKES THE FLIP COVER ON MINE).