Casio Cassiopeia EM-500 Color Pocket PC (Slate Blue)

It has been in the shop for more than a month now. I guess that means that as of today, it has been away for service for more days than I got to use it in the first place.I could not keep the screen aligned. When you tap the stylus on the screen, the machine should detect exactly where you tap. You can go through an "alignment" procedure to set the position of the stylus exactly. Unfortunately, the screen would go out of alignment (by one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch) five or six times per day. Every third or fourth day, the screen would go out of alignment by one-half to three-quarters inch.It did not "drift" out of alignment; it would happen suddenly, in the middle of writing characters, for example. I could see the character being formed directly underneath the stylus, and the very next character would be a quarter-inch above or below the stylus.So, does this happen to everyone (and everyone else just puts up with it)? I don't know, but I could not get any information from Casio whether this was expected behavior, unusual behavior, a common failure or an unusual failure.So I shipped it back to Casio factory service in NJ, and cannot find out anything about when (if ever) they will send it back, or if they can fix it or if I'll have to live with it.I sure wish I had bought an iPaq. Maybe I'll go ahead and order an iPaq; it will probably arrive from backorder before I get the Casio back.

I wanted a good TFT color screen. I prefered the Cassioppiea over Palm because of a better screen resolution and larger usable screen size. I prefered it over Compaq because of better pricing and better score in a PC Magazine review.WHAT I LIKE: The TFT screen is perfect. Great colors, great contrast, great visibility, no compromise. The handwriting recognition software is reasonnably easy to use and accurate. The casing is sturdy, it fits well in your hand with non slip finishing.WHAT I DON'T LIKE: audio recording with the built-in mike is bad to the point of being useless. The user interface is somewhat inflexible and not as intuitive or confortable as with the Palm OS . The battery needs frequent charging even when not in use. The docking cradle is not included as standard equipment.BUT WORST OF ALL: accessories seem impossible to find. The local computer stores in my area do not hold any, even tough they do have plenty of choice for other brands (Palm, Compaq, Handspring etc.) I am completely unable to find a docking cradle, a spare stylus, a spare charger or a spare battery unit! I tried on line shopping with no more success (for example, try the amazon web site ...) EVEN THE CASIO site have been out of spare cradle for many weeks!In conclusion: honestly built and designed, gorgeous TFT screen but I should have paid a closer look to other brands (I have heard great comments about Compaq).

I had the unique opportunity to use and evaluate the Casio EM500 for a week to determine if I was interested in purchasing it. At the end of that week, I really wanted to buy this PDA, but I had some lingering concerns that kept me from doing so. Here are some of my thoughts after using it:-First off, I really loved the display on this unit. It was extremely bright and easy to read even in daylight. I would not have thought it, but a color screen made a HUGE difference. I had a Palm Pilot before, so I know what I'm talking about here. This Casio has one of the best displays of any of the color units.-I really liked the PocketPC OS with just a few exceptions. As I mentioned earlier, I have had a Palm Pilot in the past. Of the two operating systems, I prefer the PocketPC. This is largely due to the fact that I use a lot of Microsoft products (Outlook, Word, Excel, Money) and it was extremely easy to synch with data with these applications. Some people prefer the Palm OS's simplicity, but for what I needed to do, I found greater functionality in the PocketPC. The only reservations I had was that the PocketPC makes in annoyingly difficult to close applications and its navigation could be simplified.-The actual hardware design of this unit is fair. It's a little on the bulky side, but I never expected to be able to fit it in my pocket to begin with. While I liked the semi-scroll wheel on the side, I never used the multi-directional D-pad on the front. In fact, I rarely used any of the buttons on the front. I was also very disappointed that there was no cradle included. The USB cable was kind of awkward to have lying across my desk, and I would have appreciated a cradle to set the unit in when not in use.-Battery life was impressive. While I never did an official test, I was often able to go through two days of normal use before needing to recharge. The unit uses a Lithium Ion battery.-Don't underestimate the benefit of having Internet Explorer and Microsoft Reader as included applications. Using Avantgo (which is included), it is very easy to read news, weather, and stocks from sources like MSN and Yahoo. The problem is that it is not a live connection to the Internet, and you must wait until you synch with a PC again to get the information updated. It was also fairly easy to find e-books for Microsoft Reader.-This unit only comes with 16mb memory. While that is more than enough to run most of the bundled applications, don't expect to play many MP3's on the Media Player unless you buy additional memory.That brings me to the biggest single drawback of this PDA and the reason I did not end up buying it. This Casio EM500 has a MMC (Multi-Media Card) expansion slot. Most of the PDA's today use Compact Flash memory slots. This means that while I could find MMC memory to buy for my Casio, I could not find very many other expansion options. There are no modems available, or cameras, or any other type of expansion pack available other that just a memory card. Being that MMC is not really catching on, at least in the USA, I worry even about the availability of MMC memory packs in the future. While this may not be important to many people, it was to me. If I am going to spend this much money on a PDA, I want it to last for a while. I want to be able to be able to expand or upgrade the unit as new technologies and products occur. Even Casio seems to realize they made a mistake by using MMC in this unit rather than Compact Flash. Newer Casio models now use Compact Flash.NOTE: Casio announced recently that EM500 will be capable of supporting SD (secure digital) memory cards. This will require a downloadable update from the Casio web site. Even with this announcement I still am concerned about upgradability options. I have yet to see anyone selling SD memory cards.If you are not interested in expansions such modems and such, then this is an excellent PDA for you and a great value. I give it four stars (****) in that case. For those of you that are like me and crave expansion, I would suggest looking at the Casio E-125, or better yet, the Compaq iPaq line of handhelds.

The Cassiopeia EM-500 looks like a pretty sweet deal. It can do almost anything the E-115 does, and it's smaller and faster. If you compare the EM-500 to the E-115, you'll notice that the E-115 has 32MB of memory, where the EM-500 has 16MB. Also, the EM-500 offers the multimedia card memory system, so memory can be easily expanded.The EM-500 seems targeted at a younger market, with great multimedia capabilities (MP3, 240 x 320 TFT 65,536 color screen, excellent gamepad).Its main competitor, the Compaq iPaq, offers more memory and speed, but less colors, and, most importantly perhaps, the keypad of the iPaq cannot register simultaneous clicks, which limits its gameplay capabilities.If you want a good Pocket PC for both "serious stuff" and games and multimedia, the EM-500 seems the way to go. A fine product by Casio, with more memory I would have given it 5 stars.