Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for iPAQ Pocket PCs Reviewed
Posted by Sanjay Srikonda in "HARDWARE" @ 09:00 AM
Power. More power. It's not as though we don't have enough, however, even a little bit more would be great. Who among us wouldn't want more power? Well, the Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for the iPAQ PocketPC from Nexian may be your saving grace. I took a look at the sleeve from Nexian. However, I'll warn you up front, this review isn't long, since what the product does is mostly behind the scenes. Is the product worth the $149.99 they're asking, or would you do better with another solution?
Nexian really was on my radar when I thought of a way to extend the battery life of my iPAQ 3850 and get a dual CF-sleeve. The Nexipak never came up as an option until I saw the product for sale at my local CompUSA store with rebates totalling $70, making the whole unit half the price. It isn't much to look at, but what it doesn't have in looks, it makes up for in brawn and staying power. I only wish their customer support process left me as warm and fuzzy as using the Nexipak.
Figure 1: What the Nexipak package looks like
The contents of the package are:
Nothing major, it's simple, black, has two dual CF slots and a detachable battery. It's a non-descript dual CF sleeve. So, of course, I slid it onto my iPAQ. Immediately, the iPAQ played that cool "insertion" sound. I navigated to the Settings > System > Expansion Pack applet and saw the following:
Figure 2: What the Nexipak looks like to the iPAQ
Ok, so far so good, nothing major going on. Of course, you have to have the intial first charge of the Nexipak, there was no documentation for the Nexipak telling me how long the initial charge should be, or if there should be one, nothing I could find on their Web site told me either. So, I had to email their tech support (this would be, as it turned out, the first of many emails to tech support). They told me the next day that the unit should be left in the cradle overnight to fully charge. Opening the Power applet on the iPAQ shows the following progress:
Figure 3: The Nexipak while charging
So, the next day I come back, and lo and behold the little light on the back of the Nexipak is a solid color, the External battery meter reads 100%, and all seems right with the world. Funny thing is, the minute I took the iPAQ out of the cradle, the power meter dropped to "just under" 100%. Now, I thought that the Nexipak was supposed to trickle a charge to the main iPAQ battery only after the main battery started to drain. The strange thing is I was never able to get the power meter to read 100%.
I ended up returning the initial Nexipak to Nexian in what was a very tortuous process of miscommunication between their shipping department and myself (they recorded the wrong address, even though I had indicated it on my RMA letter to them, then instead of re-routing it to my correct work address, delivery was attemped to my home address, then returned back to UPS, then finally after almost five emails to Nexian, the product was sent to my correct work address I'd asked the replacement unit to be sent to originally.
This was not, however, a problem with Nexian's Customer Support. It was a problem of their shipping department. Their Customer Support department was better, they answered my email questions promptly, issued me an RMA, but only answered my direct question as to whether they replace or repair the "defective" extended battery, in case you're wondering, it's up to them what they do).
I don't actually know what the company did because according to the serial number I recorded before returning the Nexipak to Nexian, the Nexipak was the same one I sent for repair. Matter of fact, the "refurbished" Nexipak had a crack in the replacement (refurbished?) battery. I know the original external battery didn't have a crack, it may not have held a charge, but at least it wasn't cracked. The replacement battery had both a crack and white scratches on it.
Instead of going through the painful return process again, I let well enough alone at this point and decided to just use the Nexipak as is.
But... How does it perform?
So, these are my unscientific results for what my usage time was for the Nexipak:
Gotchas
Of course, with any product, there are gotchas.
Where to buy
This product can be purchased directly from Mobile Planet for $119.95. [Affiliate]
Specifications
Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for iPAQ PocketPC:
Buy one but don't buy one directly from Nexian. Get one for less than the MSRP $149.99. Don't rely on the power meter level to tell you how much power you really have left. But get one if you find that you're running out of power while using your iPAQ but still want the added bonus of using a dual CF slot. The Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for the iPAQ PocketPC is a good product. It would have been better if their shipping department didn't cause such a nightmare and then Nexian decided to replace the faulty original battery with a cracked and scarred replacement one. A disclosure about the battery meter reading being off by as much as 20% would also have gone a long way, in my book. To me, it would have made the company seem as though it wasn't trying to hide something about actual versus claimed performance. Don't get me wrong, the performance lives up to the claims, just the claims should be a lot more forthright.
Nexian really was on my radar when I thought of a way to extend the battery life of my iPAQ 3850 and get a dual CF-sleeve. The Nexipak never came up as an option until I saw the product for sale at my local CompUSA store with rebates totalling $70, making the whole unit half the price. It isn't much to look at, but what it doesn't have in looks, it makes up for in brawn and staying power. I only wish their customer support process left me as warm and fuzzy as using the Nexipak.
Figure 1: What the Nexipak package looks like
The contents of the package are:
- 1 Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for iPAQ PocketPC
- Warranty leaflet
- Detachable, rechargeable Li-ion battery usable up to 12 hours
- Provides 2X Power to the iPAQ and CF Module
- NexiPak keeps on supplying power even when the iPAQ primary power source is drained
- Charge NexiPak with iPAQ's power adapter or with Nexian's optional travel or cigarette chargers
Nothing major, it's simple, black, has two dual CF slots and a detachable battery. It's a non-descript dual CF sleeve. So, of course, I slid it onto my iPAQ. Immediately, the iPAQ played that cool "insertion" sound. I navigated to the Settings > System > Expansion Pack applet and saw the following:
Figure 2: What the Nexipak looks like to the iPAQ
Ok, so far so good, nothing major going on. Of course, you have to have the intial first charge of the Nexipak, there was no documentation for the Nexipak telling me how long the initial charge should be, or if there should be one, nothing I could find on their Web site told me either. So, I had to email their tech support (this would be, as it turned out, the first of many emails to tech support). They told me the next day that the unit should be left in the cradle overnight to fully charge. Opening the Power applet on the iPAQ shows the following progress:
Figure 3: The Nexipak while charging
So, the next day I come back, and lo and behold the little light on the back of the Nexipak is a solid color, the External battery meter reads 100%, and all seems right with the world. Funny thing is, the minute I took the iPAQ out of the cradle, the power meter dropped to "just under" 100%. Now, I thought that the Nexipak was supposed to trickle a charge to the main iPAQ battery only after the main battery started to drain. The strange thing is I was never able to get the power meter to read 100%.
I ended up returning the initial Nexipak to Nexian in what was a very tortuous process of miscommunication between their shipping department and myself (they recorded the wrong address, even though I had indicated it on my RMA letter to them, then instead of re-routing it to my correct work address, delivery was attemped to my home address, then returned back to UPS, then finally after almost five emails to Nexian, the product was sent to my correct work address I'd asked the replacement unit to be sent to originally.
This was not, however, a problem with Nexian's Customer Support. It was a problem of their shipping department. Their Customer Support department was better, they answered my email questions promptly, issued me an RMA, but only answered my direct question as to whether they replace or repair the "defective" extended battery, in case you're wondering, it's up to them what they do).
I don't actually know what the company did because according to the serial number I recorded before returning the Nexipak to Nexian, the Nexipak was the same one I sent for repair. Matter of fact, the "refurbished" Nexipak had a crack in the replacement (refurbished?) battery. I know the original external battery didn't have a crack, it may not have held a charge, but at least it wasn't cracked. The replacement battery had both a crack and white scratches on it.
Instead of going through the painful return process again, I let well enough alone at this point and decided to just use the Nexipak as is.
But... How does it perform?
So, these are my unscientific results for what my usage time was for the Nexipak:
- Nexipak installed, with a IBM 1Gigabyte Microdrive in CF slot one
- While working at full brightness, I sat listening to music that had been copied to the Microdrive
- I was able to listen to all 150 songs
Gotchas
Of course, with any product, there are gotchas.
- This product needs better documentation. Companies have got to start realizing that writing documentation that makes the product sound like it won't have any problems makes it a bit of a problem when you do have a question
- Why doesn't the battery meter ever stay at 100%? The final answer after countless emails (after I received my cracked replacement battery from Nexian) to Nexian was: "Please keep in mind that the percentage is reported by the OS, and is an estimated guess. From our experience this estimation can be off by 20% its actual strength." If this is the case, why do they even allow you to see the battery meter via the Power applet? There's nothing in the documentation that states this, there's nothing in the leaflet manual you get with the product, nothing states that the reading for the backup battery can be off by as much as 20%. That seems to be a big margin of error to me. You'd think somewhere on their Web site or in their documentation they'd let users know this
- I had a really weird issue with the iPAQ completley screwing up the screen when I inserted a Linksys Wireless WCF12 card in slot two and my IBM Microdrive in slot one. I also had a problem if slot two was the only slot being used rather than slot one. Each time I tried to put my Microdrive in slot two, my iPAQ did NOT recognize the CF drive as being inserted. This was far from scientific, but I could repeat these results each time I did this
- If you want straight answers as to what Nexian does with replacements/repairs, and I don't know if anyone else has had bad experiences with their replacements, let me know, but mine was so bad that even though I received a damaged relpacement battery to replace a malfunctioning original one, I chose to let it go, because it just wasn't worth the effort to go through that painful process again
Where to buy
This product can be purchased directly from Mobile Planet for $119.95. [Affiliate]
Specifications
Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for iPAQ PocketPC:
- Size: 3.4" W x 5.2" L x 1.6" T
- Dual CompactFlash (Type II)
- Li-ion 1550mAH
- Detachable Battery (although I found that if you detach the battery, your Dual CF pack is immediately shut down)
- LED Charging Indicator
Buy one but don't buy one directly from Nexian. Get one for less than the MSRP $149.99. Don't rely on the power meter level to tell you how much power you really have left. But get one if you find that you're running out of power while using your iPAQ but still want the added bonus of using a dual CF slot. The Nexipak Dual CF & Power Pak for the iPAQ PocketPC is a good product. It would have been better if their shipping department didn't cause such a nightmare and then Nexian decided to replace the faulty original battery with a cracked and scarred replacement one. A disclosure about the battery meter reading being off by as much as 20% would also have gone a long way, in my book. To me, it would have made the company seem as though it wasn't trying to hide something about actual versus claimed performance. Don't get me wrong, the performance lives up to the claims, just the claims should be a lot more forthright.
