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SPV Journal – 10 October 2004 – ROM and C500s

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ver the last week, I’ve done a couple of things with the SPV. First off, I finally got around to updating the ROM following Orange’s last update (released in August). My excuse for not performing the update just yet is that I didn’t want to upset my SPVing over the summer and the trip to America, but the reality is that I didn’t spot it until a couple of days before we departed to California, and I really didn’t want to break it.

Anyway, this has now been effected and without fuss. I’m optimistic that the days of struggling with a ROM upgrade for any PDA of mine are long over! We shall see.

Unfortunately, I’ve also finally been forced /cough/ into spending a little time with the SPV C500. The C500 offers two significant advantages over the E200 – it’s smaller and handier, and the battery lasts significantly longer.

Fortunately, I’m still locked into my contract, so I’ll not be getting my hands on one.

Yet.

Endgame

I updating the SPV’s ROM and after I sorted the problems I was having with battery longevity, the SPV has settled down. Actually, the last update improved battery life. Whereas before I could go for two days with some use before needing a charge, now I could go up to four days. It seems that power consumption when the device is idle has been significantly reduced. That’s good news, for much of the time the SPV is idle, although that said I am getting into the habit of using it rather more than I used to.

I could now top up the battery on, say, a Friday morning, take the handset away for two nights, and by the time I return on the Sunday afternoon (with some use over the weekend, but not much) with two bars showing on the battery meter. This battery performance is significantly better than it was when I first bought it, although to be honest it is never usually sensible to purchase a device in the hope that future upgrades will make it more suitable!

Unfortunately after one such weekend away I stupidly managed to damage my SPV’s connection pins whilst hooking it up to a sync and charge USB cable. Now, it won’t connect or charge, so I’ve had to downgrade my handset to my old Nokia 3210 until I figured out what to do. Although it’s an ancient handset, it still works perfectly (even if the battery doesn’t hold charge as well as it used to) and I’m establishing what to do about the SPV. At this point, I think getting it repaired is on the cards but I’ve also moved my Smartphone platform to PalmOS.

Enter the Tungsten W!