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Happy with the Hiptop
10.25.02 / 06:00PM / Joe
 I'm probably coming from an unusual perspective on the Danger Hiptop (or T-Mobile Sidekick, depending on your branding preference.) I've never owned a PDA of any type; I've never used calendar software on any platform. Heck, I've never even owned a cell phone. But when I first heard about the Hiptop, I knew it was the gadget I've been holding out for. The Hiptop broke my PDA cherry, you could say.
Everything I read says that it's being marketed towards young folk... which I find odd since I've seen zero advertising from T-Mobile for it, for teens or otherwise. It's not a PocketPC. It's not a high-end all-in-one PDA from the gods by any means. It's a PocketPC that's been whittled down to a very clean, very usable trinket. And it's extremely affordable. *That's* it's main draw. If this thing cost $600, there's no way I'd have one. But at $200, it's wonderful.
I had some pretty specific goals for my Hiptop. Chief among them was the ability to update fourhman.com from anywhere. I also love the idea of having AIM with me at all times. I've become a fairly silly AIM junkie; I have four different accounts running on four different computers now. It's not like I especially enjoy having IM conversations, I just find it very convenient for quick connects with friends. And a mobile IM account is fun. I talk with Scott while we're waiting for our Fuddruckers veggieburgers. Arrange a visit with my sister while we're at the mall. Bug my wife at work when I took the day off to game with Mike. Yeah, I suppose I could use the phone feature of the damned thing, but IM has socialization benefits that a cell phone can't match: like the easy out. You can always just Stop Talking in an IM window and no one will be offended. Hurm. My thoughts on IM in use and theory might make an interesting future weblog update.
Anyway, yes, I can update fourhman.com through the Hiptop's nifty web browser. I use Movable Type for much of the content here, and the Hiptop can navigate most of it just fine. Most of it. The Hiptop web browser doesn't do java, and you can't upload files from the Hiptop to anywhere. So I can't snap a pic with the Hiptop camera and immediately get it to fourhman.com. That pretty much stinks, and I'm trying to find a solution. I've checked out several server-side scripts that could grab a Hiptop pic from incoming e-mail and decode it back into a jpg, but that's way over my head.
That camera is not much of a camera, by the way. See that "latest live shot" in the upper left corner of the main page here? That's exactly what you get with the Hiptop camera. Not a thumbnail. Not an imaginary story. Not a hoax. That's it. More for fun than for serious pic use. And since I can't get at those pictures at any way other than e-mail, I have to e-mail the pics back to my home iMac and then upload them manually. Here's some samples that haven't already hit the site:
  
   
  
The e-mail setup is nice. You get an instant account with T-Mobile's tmail, but you can configure your settings so it says something else... for instance, I have a fourhman.com account sending mail to my tmail address, but my tmail settings display only the fourhman.com name. What else can you say. It's e-mail and it works.
But the coolest feature is the hardware itself. The scroll wheel is nicely placed under your right thumb. It clicks and wheels and can display a bizarre array of colored lights. The camera is a separate accessory (another minus!) that plugs into the same port as the hands-free handset (which I've never used.) But the keyboard. Technically speaking, the keyboard is a huge advantage over the stylus-based Palm set. Get thee to that website right now and watch the demo movies. The short version is, the entire LCD screen flips 180 degrees to reveal a wonderfully compact and fully functional keyboard. That, my friend, is what makes wireless weblogging and e-mail an actual possibility. One of these days, I'm going to update this site from the beach. If I didn't hate the beach.
Review continues later... |
