New version of King Kanji

Details of the new features and a 30 day trial download can be found at the Gakusoft site.

NEC Opens Up Membership Based PDA Portal for Businesses and Developers

Not much of interest to users here, but good to see this type of support for the PDA industry from businesses and a good sign for the PDA industry's future in Japan. Site is only in Japanese: PDABiz

Are there any good J-E/E-J dictionary's for Pocket PCs ?

Originally posted as an answer to a aimilar question in the discussion group.

JWPce (freeware) can take a bit of getting used to and installing is not quite as simple as click-and-go but when you do get it installed and get used to it it provides good access to EDICT. It's actually a word processor but the kanji and word dictionary are the key features. There is a companion freeware flash card program called JFC contributing to what is an excellent package. All the info is here: http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/jwpce.html

Do some obvious searches on Google and you will find some good flash card sets other people have created. (Same goes for King Kanji).

In addition most Japanese model PPCs come with E-J, J-E, kokugo and perhaps kanji dict. The Sanseido one on my old G-FORT and the Jisyo Supa on my Genio perform well but don't offer anything more than very basic lookup functions are certainly have no tools to help learn vocab.

Some of the better of the other tools out there (Most only have Japanese information):
- PDIC: http://member.nifty.ne.jp/TaN/ (Can be used to access Eijiro but I have yet to try it pending getting hold of a bigger memory card).
- ZPDVIEW: http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA004474/wince/wince.html (Another good looking tool I really have to try)

There are also an increasingly good range of commercial dictionaries out there, including on the shelves of some of the larger computer stores. Searching for Ž«�‘ (jisyo) here http://www.wince.ne.jp/soft2002/ will get you a list of most of them. I'm not sure about the user interface but the content is the equivalent of the print dictionaries from the same companies. (Aside: I personally like EIJIRO (www.alc.co.jp for web access) for translations but it doesn't have the kanji readings so it may also be necessary to look these up using a separate tool/dictionary).

Finally, this Java dictionary - Babbletower - is still at early release stage but it has been getting very good comments from people who know what they are talking about: http://home.att.ne.jp/theta/xelalex/v

NTT DoCoMo's Pocket PC - Musea

I had to remove this report for a few days after reading this slightly unclear article about the Musea on the AsiaBizTech site. The article seems to suggest that the Musea has in-built FOMA communication capability (quote: 'first PDA terminal with FOMA built-in wireless communications functions on the operating system'), something I had not understood when I wrote the post below and so I removed the post thinking it was inaccurate. In reality after checking the DoCoMo site in Japanese and the press release in English I am reasonably confident that this is not the case. The original post follows:

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See a report on Pocket PC Life. There's nothing that this Pocket PC can do that any other Japanese capable Pocket PC can't except m-stage visual. Why do NTT DoCoMo bother doing this? Surely they won't make money from selling the device itself. If it is anything like the G-FORT it will be priced lower than other Pocket PCs but will suffer from lack of third part peripheral support. They are already out of the race using an old generation processor, a 3.5" screen and only one expansion slot. The design is okay but the weight is still heavier than the Genio at 180g. I' sure DoCoMo would have been much better off investing the money in rolling out solutions and services for all the Pocket PCs out there from real consumer goods manufacturers, for example by releasing software for m-stage visual.

I wonder who makes this device? I saw the device and asked a few weeks ago at Wireless Japan but they wouldn't say. Doesn't look like a Casio. I'd guess some Taiwanese manufacturer this time round.

The Japanese page on the DoCoMo site for the device is here. The Windows CE Fan coverage (in Japanese) is here.

Hitachi WLAN, Windows CE .NET PDA for Non-Business Customers

As reported in the Tokyo PC Users Group tpc.mobile newsgroup, Hitachi seem to have started shipping their previously business only WLAN PDA to private consumers. The site in Japanese is http://floracity.hitachi.co.jp/go/direct/direct/pda/index.htm. Key good specs include a PXA250 processor, in-built IEEE802.11b WLAN, weight of just 155g and reasonable priced (9000 yen) PC card jacket. Not so impressive specs include 3.5" screen, only one MMC/SD card slot and limited bundled software. The OS Windows CE .NET but I'm not sure what this means in terms of compatibility with Pocket PC apps and compatible hardware.

New Pocket PC Japan Discussion Group

Check out the new Pocket PC Japan discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pocketpcjapan/.

Fujitsu Loox Review and Japan Release Date

There is a review of the Fujitsu Loox Pocket PC due out in Japan on 2nd
August here: http://www.tekguru.co.uk/PPC_Reviews/LOOX/index.htm.

Main (only?) advantages over the Genio are built-in Bluetooth, jog dial and
action button on left side. Disadvantages include smaller screen, slightly
heavier and bulkier, no PC card jacket option, at first glance less bundled
software (including no dictionary), no USB host functionality. Also I'm not
confident about the technical details, but the Genio SD slot can also use
I/O cards which I believe are those which outside the scope of flash memory,
I'm not sure the Fujitsu can.

Price is expected to be similar so I'd say only people who really need
built-in Bluetooth would be better off with the Loox rather than the Genio.

Genio e550G Report

A bit slow on posting a report, but I finally splashed out for the Genio e550G (http://www.genio-e.com/pda/) - a long awaited PDA upgrade on the 6th June - the first day of release. I'd been itching to upgrade since at least last November but was determined to wait for the right device and am convinced I made the right decision. So what's so good about it?

Size - Much smaller than my GFORT and one of the smallest and lightest PDAs on the market with two expansion slots. 170g, 125x76.5x15.9

Screen - it spite of the small body footprint it sports a great 4" screen. I don't know of any other PDA in this size category which has a screen of the same size. Of course the screen has the normal

Processor - XScale PXA250 400 MHz. Much improved performance over the GFORT 140 MHz. Can handle downloading e-mail in the background while you are surfing or using other apps.

Expanison - In-built CF II and SD slot. USB host in cradle or with optional cable. PCMCIA jacket option. Hard to beat for expansion options and there are a huge range of Pocket PC compatible accessories to take advantage of.

Pocket PC OS and software - (Is this where the controversy starts ;-) I really like the OS. Very easy to use and the bundled apps cover all standard PDA needs. For the most part they are well designed but see the 'bad' section below for a few niggles. In addition there are now a humungous range of apps for the Pocket PC to cover almost every conceivable need and as mentioned above a huge range of compatible hardware apps. The OS is also very stable and never crashes. There are a wide range of input methods including keyboards, kanji drawing input, hand writing recognition and note recognition. Additional third party apps are also appearing. Setting up network and internet connections is very easy.

Bundled apps - A great selection is provided on CD including Japanese dictionary, JR Travel Navigator, Flash viewer, i-appli viewer, Personal Java, map viewing software and maps, photo viewer, T-Time Japanese e-book reader, Word, Excel and PowerPoint native format viewer (the Pocket versions of Word and Excel take files which are converted to pocket version automatically by Active Synch, neat speech tool which reads Japanese text, Windows Media Player 8, MSN Messenger and of course Pocket Internet Explorer. The is also a while designed customizable home screen app which is an ice addition to the Pocket PC native Today screen. I find I use both for different purposes. For the first time I feel like I have a useful desktop on my PDA.

Flashable ROM - Can update the OS with new updates.

Track record and accessories - Toshiba made a good impression with the first generation Genio Pocket PC. They made available a range of accessories and they are popular enough that 3rd party manufacturers make accessories which support the Genio.

Well designed and information packed web site.

And now for a few minor bad things:

Battery Life - This is by far the biggest problem with all Pocket PCs. Supposedly around 10 hours for the Genio at 400 MHz with front light off but I really doubt it would last this long with real usage. Using the front light, processor heavy apps playing lot's of multimedia or using energy hungry expansion cards all add load. You can manage all these things but what's the point having them if you are going to turn them off. It really is a serious deficiency for a PDA to have battery life problems and I'm sure Palm users everywhere will be shouting victory, but in my opinion this handicap is worth putting up with for all the other benefits. I haven't run out of batteries so far but I do find myself plugging in at every available opportunity and being careful not to waste power. Depending on how I end up using the device over the long term I may carry a spare battery jacket or get the PCMCIA jacket which also has inbuilt power.

In-built PIM (Pocket Outlook)) - There are a few niggles or things on my wish list which would make the PIM much better software. Just a small niggle. Pocket Informant is a 3rd party PIM app recommended by all the Pocket PC gurus which uses the Pocket Outlook databases and costs just $19.95

No in-built Bluetooth - Not such a bad thing in reality but some people may argue no built in Bluetooth is a disadvantage. I think there will be a new generation or two of Pocket PC by the time Bluetooth really takes off and in the meantime a CF or SD card will probably be perfectly okay in most situations.

No screen protectors - There were no screen protectors shipped with the Genio and as the screen is larger than usual no cut-to-size 3rd party ones are available yet. Have to cut one to size for now.

No scroll wheel - I missed the scroll wheel on the left at first but have got used to not having it and may actually be doing things more efficiently without it though. In fact though it's not really a wheel that you find on most Pocket PCs but an up-down scroll button. I like the button-wheel (like a mouse wheel-button) I have on my Sony video camera and would like this navigation option on more PDAs.

Cursor button - The default button was convex and a bit difficult to use. An additional button with an in and out concave design is much easier to use though. Still got to get used to this compared to the scroll button though.

Firmware/OS Update - An update was released just six days after the original release to fix a few minor bugs.

Price: At around 67,800 yen it's pretty expensive, beaten only be the iPAQ. You also need to factor in the costs of cases, screen protectors, extra chargers, battery jackets, PCMCIA card jackets and other peripherals like CF and SD cards if you don't already have these and want to make the most of the PDA.

Japanese OS: If you want an English version you are out of luck as no English version has been released or announced yet. The Japanese version was slightly delayed by about a week supposedly to ensure they had enough devices to meet demand so perhaps like the iPAQ before it demand will exceed the speed that they can be manufactured.

Overall all the many good points far, far outweigh the minor bad points and it is a very well designed and powerful PDA. I'd certainly recommend it as the best Pocket PC and arguably the most powerful PDA available on the market at the current time.

AsiaBizTech has a brief article on Skywave's VoIP software and possible supporting services which would allow us to make VoIP phone calls with our Pocket PCs by early 2003.

WindowsCE Fan has a good article about the Hitachi NPD-10JWL Pocket PC. In brief this is a business consumer targetted unit based on Windows CE.NET with a XScale PXA250 400MHz processor. Here's the Japanese article and English machine translation.

Not Japan specific, but the news on the web is that the Jornada will disappear and the iPAQ will surive as a result of the HP-Compaq merger.

Yodobashi (67,800 yen - 10% points) have the device in their online shop but no exact shipping date yet. BIC only have the e550G/MD at 99,800 yen - 10% points but they used a photograh of an older model!

The J@pan Inc. GadgetWatch newsletter mentions the Toshiba e550G in their May 9th Newsletter (a very well-written and worthwhile newsletter for Gadget freaks). As usual I've also made some posts about the device in the tpc.mobile newsgroup.

Toshiba has released an astounding looking device scheduled for release in Japan at the end of May. No info anywhere in English yet, but the Japanese page is very well designed: http://genio-e.com/pda/

I've been pretty lazy keeping this Blog up-to-date - but one of the reasons is the Tokyo PC Users Group tpc.mobile newsgroup to which I post quite a lot. You can link to the the web or news version or sign up for the mailing list here. The group is great for finding out about the latest tools and services available in Japan and worldwide and the knowledgeable people there are very forthcoming with help and advice.

Following the release of the Casio E-2000 and the NEC Pocket Gear things have been pretty quiet on the Pocket PC scene here in Japan. Toshiba and Hitachi have announced they have new devices planned with Intel XScale processor, but Fujitsu has been most forthcoming with a device for the consumer market, announcing a planned release date of the end of May. CNETAsia has a nice article on it.

I decided not to upgrade from my G-FORT for the moment. The NEC PocketGear was almost right but I really wanted 64MB of RAM. The Casio looked cheap compared to the flashy images on the web and the bundled software was uninspiring. Will wait for something better. It's interesting that the Fujitsu mentioned about will come with Bluetooth in Japan but wireless phone functions instead elsewhere in the world.