HP Jornada 820

Impressions of the HP Jornada 820 running Windows CE 2.11
Copyright 1998 Todd Ogasawara
Forum Manager, Microsoft Computing Central Windows CE Forum


HP Jornada 820. The large rectangular object at the top of of the picture is the "standard" battery that comes with the unit. Click on the picture to see a larger image. (50+ KB file)	HP Jornada 820. The red tab below the keyboard is a reminder not to install the backup batteries until after [1] the standard battery is installed and [2] the A/C adapter has been plugged into the unit. Click on the picture to see a larger image. (60+ KB file)

Left: NEC MobilePro 750C with backlight turned on. Right: HP Jornada with default LCD display condition. Units were photographed in the dark with no flash.	Left: NEC MobilePro 750C with backlight turned off. Right: HP Jornada 820 with default LCD display condition. Units were photographed under dim lights with no flash.

Left: Photo of HP 16MB RAM Expansion board (from HP's web page)	Right: Screws that loosen the keyboard to allow RAM/ROM upgrade (Note: I have not performed this upgrade myself)

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The Official HP Jornada 820 Web Page

What others are saying about the Jornada 820.

23 January 1999 Comments

I've been using the HP Jornada 820 for two full months now.
The version of Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) that ships with CE OS 2.11 can execute Javascript. However, it is unable to use included source code called by the SRC argument of the SCRIPT tag. E.g., the line
<SCRIPT SRC="/navbar.js"></SCRIPT>
on this web page is not included and interpreted.
The 56Kbps V.90 built-in modem seems consistently sluggish. At best, downstream throughput seems to be about 9.6Kbps (guessing from previous experience with modems).
For some reason, I have noticed a lot more mini-lockups while typing in either Pocket Word or responding to e-mail. The bes way to describe this forced delay is a "petite mal" (small seizure). It is quite annoying.
I bought a Kensington USB Mouse-in-a-Box a few weeks ago. It cost $29.95 US and worked as soon as I plugged it into the Jornada's USB port. There was no driver or other installation procedure required.
NSBasic/CE for the HP Jornada is in beta test mode. The beta release seems to work well. Looking forward to using the production version.
I'm taking my family on a week long vacation starting tomorrow. For better or for worse, I've decided the only computer I will take along is the HP Jornada 820 (to check on e-mail and my Forum newsgroups).
128-BIT SECURE SOCKETS LAYER ADD-ON FOR POCKET INTERNET EXPLORER 3.0 is available now.

23 December 1998 Comments

So, where's the software for the StrongARM based Jornada? This might be the most asked question about the HP Jornada 820. This latest set of comments will try to address that question.
I suspect most applications are in the process of being ported to the StrongARM processor and/or dealing with the H/PC Pro's 640x480 VGA-sized display.
I've seen pre-release versions of:
- bSQUARE's bMOBILE News
- Ilium Software's eWallet and ListPro for the StrongARM.
- They all work great. Stay tuned for 1999 releases.
There are a few production releases of software too:
- Microsoft Windows Entertainment Pack 2.0 for Windows CE.
- Microsoft Mobile Channels for Handheld PCs installed fine on my HP Jornada. Download Mobile Channel Viewer for Handheld PCs
- NSBasic/CE. I have downloaded the upgrade but have not installed it yet.
- Software bundled with the Jornada. E.g., Inso's Viewer.

10 December 1998 Comments

Battery Life: I've had my Jornada nearly three weeks now. Although I've used it for several long (one to two hour) online sessions using the built-in 56K modem, the battery monitor shows 24% capacity with an estimate of over 2 hours remaining battery life (which may or may not be accurate).
Kensington USB Mouse: I bought a Kensington USB Mouse for $20 USD at the local CompUSA. I plugged it into the Jornada USB port and the mouse worked as soon as I turned on the Jornada. No drivers, no installation procedure, no Plug-n-Play notification. The mouse simply worked as desired.
I took some comparison shots of the NEC MobilePro 750C and HP Jornada 820 LCD screens under dark and dim lighting conditions. You can see the results in the second row of photos at the top of this page.

08 December 1998 Comments

I'm still trying to "make peace" with the Touch Pad. However, the wonderful keyboard almost makes up for the difficulty I have in using the TouchPad.
The color LCD display is truly wonderful. I was told that the screen's brightness is due to the additional power made available because of the lack of a touch screen. I must confess that the Jornada 820's screen is much brighter and easier to read than the NEC MobilePro 750C (which is not an H/PC Pro but is a mini-notebook sized H/PC).
There is something about a full 640x480 VGA display that makes it not only easier but more pleasant to do work like writing using Pocket Word.
Initially, I ran into a problem when trying to synchronize/partner the HP Jornada 820 with my Windows NT4 desktop workstation. I ended up removing the backup battery and main Lithium Ion battery (in that order) and letting the unit revert to factory shipped state. I then replaced the batteries (main batteries first, then backup batteries) and was able to successfully synchronize and partner with my desktop PC.

22 November 1998 Comments

The official web site is at http://www.hp.com/jornada/.
The HP Jornada 820 is roughly three times the size of the HP320LX and weighs about 2.5 pounds.
The keyboard is comfortable and has is reasonably easy for a touch typist to use. The top row of the keyboard consists of 11 icon labeled function keys used to lauch various applications. There is a tiny half-sized TAB key on home row of the keyboard. I wish it were larger. There are two dead (unused) key spaces that defines the inverted-T cursor pad. I wish HP had placed dedicated PageUp/PageDown keys there.
The screen is NOT a touch-screen. HP chose, instead, to use a touchpad In general, I find touchpads uncomfortable to use. I find it places a strain on my wrist and forearm due to my tendency to tighten my arm when using a touchpad.
The 640x480 VGA color LCD screen quality is very good.
Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) works reasonably well with most web pages. A notable exception is the C|Net News.Com web page. Its formatting is not interpreted correctly even after modifying various paramenters.
JPEG images tend to shimmer when viewed suing PIE.
PIE now supports Jscript (a variant of JavaScript).
The Pocket Outlook Inbox e-mail client still does not support the Secure Password Authentication (SPA) required to directly access MSN's POP3 e-mail server. However, you can retrieve POP3 e-mail using Hotmail's SPA enabled POP3 access system. Moreover, since PIE now supports Jscript, you can enter Hotmail using http://www.hotmail.com/ instead of the http://www.hotmail.com/proxy.html entry point required by previous versions of Windows CE and PIE.
PIE supports 40-bit encryption. I used a site that requires 40-bit encryption without problems. However, you will not be able to use sites that require 128-bit encryption.

Windows CE 2.11 H/PC Professional related information .
Mini-reviews of Windows CE Books with links to Amazon.com.