5. WiFi And Battery Power

#5: Wi-Fi And Other Connectivity

Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g generated almost unanimous consensus. Mkaibear in the forum reminds us that if a $150 Nintendo DS has it, so should the Psion. And we couldn't agree more. When going on vacation with your Psion 20xx you'll want to read your e-mail or surf the web in your hotel's lobby or in your room. And then there are all those shopping malls, coffee shops, universities, etc. and your own wireless LAN at home.

Bluetooth was also suggested primarily to communicate with cell phones. Some readers doubted the usefulness of infrared (present in the Psion 5mx) these days, but guessed that it could be maintained for compatibility purposes. Some readers like sillycon on the forum suggested EVDO or 3G+. HSDPA technology in particular has just gone up from 1.8Mps to 3.6Mpbs and is now available in a small box with a USB interface. This is the so called Internet in a box sold by phone companies like Vodafone. The Psion could be connected to such a box, saving precious space inside the Psion.

A different and interesting perspective comes from bestofcomputer, who lives in India. Apparently all broadband in India comes from an Ethernet Cable: there is no USB, no phone line and no cable. A solution could be to incorporate an Ethernet port in the Psion. Due to space limitations however, we could take advantage of a clever idea put forward by Leslie Perecz and mkaibear: an optional docking station. We could have an Ethernet port, a conventional modem, a Firewire port, a larger capacity battery and even a hard disk with 30 or 60 GB, and like Leslie suggested, a PCMCIA slot. This would be a very useful docking station indeed.

The only physical connection to the outside world on the current Psion is in the back. It's a proprietary connector for an RS232 adapter. The connector is covered by a nice upwardly sliding door. If the door could be made to open further two USB ports could be accommodated. A third USB port could be put on the left side of the Psion.

The back of the Psion 20xx with a VGA connector and 2 USB ports. The slider covers an out-dated connector for an RS-232 adapter on the 5mx. Here the connector is replaced by 2 USB ports; computer composite image by Tiago Pascoal.

The left side of the Psion 20xx has a third USB port; computer composite image by Tiago Pascoal .

#6: Battery

According to many readers, including davidmcnaught, and we agree, this is the key reason why we are still talking about Psions to this day. If it ran on proprietary rechargeable batteries, once dead, the users would have to stop using it, mainly because replacement batteries would be hard to find and expensive. But the Psion 5mx and its kin run on ordinary alkaline batteries and that is what has kept theses computers alive for so many years. You can buy spare batteries at the supermarket and take a Psion anywhere without worrying about finding a wall outlet to recharge its batteries. Two AA's in a Psion 5mx last for a month of work. And remember the 5mx constantly drains energy to keep data on RAM, something the new one should not have to do.

Twenty hours is a good battery life according to Roger Peggram, 8/10 hours according to Surjector in the forum and a modest 3/4 hours according to sillycon. On average, 6-7 hours of battery life would be good. Of course, ten would be great. But with a color screen, maybe 20 hours is out of reach. The best approach might be to keep the battery compartment and the computer itself compatible with 1.5v alkaline batteries and to develop a single rechargeable lithium polymer battery to fit into the battery compartment.

To squeeze a bit more power out of the rechargeable battery, it and the battery compartment could be a bit longer than two AA batteries. A longer negative pole spring could be used to accommodate the length of both 2 alkaline batteries and the lithium ion battery. This way you should be able to get 6-10 hours of run time out of the rechargeable battery and a smaller but still useful number of hours from the alkalines. If absolutely necessary, the new Psion could operate on 4 AA or AAA batteries with some compromise in weight and size.