Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Casio! Casio! Wherefore Art Thou Casio...?
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 12:30 PM
With the announcement of the new Palm devices, and seeing their consumer-friendly hardware designs, my thoughts wander back to my favourite OEM of all time: Casio. Why Casio you might ask? It's simple: I'm a consumer, and they made a consumer-grade Pocket PC, something that no current OEM is doing.
Now I'm not talking about the slightly dubious quality of the E-200 (apologies to all you E-200 owners). I'm talking about the incredibly tough and well-designed E-125 and EM-500 Pocket PCs. Back when I did the Mobile Experience Tour in 2001, I had 60+ iPAQs, Jornadas, @migos, and Casio devices. These Pocket PCs were hauled around from city to city, unpacked, battered and bruised by thousands of people, then packed up again and shipped off to another city in the back of a huge truck. They took a beating, and what amazed me the most is the way the Casio units stood up to it. The @migos and iPAQs had the highest failure rate, the Jornadas were next, and the Casios after that. I only had one Casio fail on me, whereas the other units had 10+ failures.
Casio, unlike HP or Dell, is a consumer electronics company. They make things like keyboards and watches - technology devices that consumers don't really think of as technology. When people are using computers, they tend to be a little careful with them - because they're "high tech". Most of us would agree that the majority of Pocket PCs made today are fairly fragile. Casio designed their Pocket PCs, especially the EM-500, so be used and abused - which is exactly what a consumer wants in an electronic device they carry everywhere with them.
So that's really why I miss Casio. The fit and finish of their early Pocket PC designs just couldn't be matched, and in the same way the fit and finish of the Sony Palm OS devices can't be matched by any Pocket PC out today. The Pocket PC camp desperately needs a consumer electronics company that deeply understand this issue to bring to market a device that is consumer friendly on every level: size, construction, colour, look & feel - everything.
Now I'm not talking about the slightly dubious quality of the E-200 (apologies to all you E-200 owners). I'm talking about the incredibly tough and well-designed E-125 and EM-500 Pocket PCs. Back when I did the Mobile Experience Tour in 2001, I had 60+ iPAQs, Jornadas, @migos, and Casio devices. These Pocket PCs were hauled around from city to city, unpacked, battered and bruised by thousands of people, then packed up again and shipped off to another city in the back of a huge truck. They took a beating, and what amazed me the most is the way the Casio units stood up to it. The @migos and iPAQs had the highest failure rate, the Jornadas were next, and the Casios after that. I only had one Casio fail on me, whereas the other units had 10+ failures.
Casio, unlike HP or Dell, is a consumer electronics company. They make things like keyboards and watches - technology devices that consumers don't really think of as technology. When people are using computers, they tend to be a little careful with them - because they're "high tech". Most of us would agree that the majority of Pocket PCs made today are fairly fragile. Casio designed their Pocket PCs, especially the EM-500, so be used and abused - which is exactly what a consumer wants in an electronic device they carry everywhere with them.
So that's really why I miss Casio. The fit and finish of their early Pocket PC designs just couldn't be matched, and in the same way the fit and finish of the Sony Palm OS devices can't be matched by any Pocket PC out today. The Pocket PC camp desperately needs a consumer electronics company that deeply understand this issue to bring to market a device that is consumer friendly on every level: size, construction, colour, look & feel - everything.
