My series 5 screen has recently cracked with only a slight knock, this has also happended to 2 of my colleagues and | am quoted £100 to replace it. I feel there must be a very big design fault.

Regards
Richard Thompson (Thompson Farming Co.)

I've had my S5 for two years now.  It's GREAT!  Really rugged. I've had
my S5 slip out of my back pocket and drop on tile floors with nary a
burble. (Heart failure for me but no probs for the S5.)  Previously I
had an S3a (which I gave to my son).  it too was a great machine.  My S5
was the last one for sale at a large "office supply" store. (A display
unit & the price was right.)  I experienced some difficulties with it
after a short time, returned it to Psion and recieved a NEW Psion S5 in
return.  What a surprise!  No questions asked, just a new machine by
return UPS with all my files on it.  Really great!  I can't say enough
about them.  I just can't figure out why everyone is "Ga-Ga" over
Windoze CE  palmtops.  $$$ = hype I suppose.

Richard Glass

My P5 works fine, it's really fantastic, and the Macro5 is a very good utility.
My "duo" is the P5 with a Tecra (Toshiba), and is very easy to transfer data
via IR port (I never use rs232 cable, don't need...).
My big problem is that my P5 is loosing the skin ! it's peeling! the thin
film that covers the plastic case is detaching... i'm from Recife, a city with high humidity
in Brazil, and I don't know if it's the problem.
Do you know if a new skin will grow (like some animals...) ? :-))
best regards,
Petrus

Having read and heard so much praise (mainly UK magazines) of the psion
series 5 I bought one about a year ago in London. My advice to people
looking for a PDA, get a palm size PC or a palm pilot IIIx. I am very
fond of gadgets owning from ZX81, Atari Portfolio, HP 100lx, Sharp
Zaurus, Newton MP from 100, 120, 130 to 2100 and psion series 5. I think
the casiopeiea, Philips Nino and the palmpilot are the best PDAs.
Two weeks after buying my Psion series 5 from Tottenham Court Road
dealer in London, the screen hinge cracked and broke, the pen slot did
not hold the pen. Psion customer or technical services rank as the
worse, wait and wait for hours and worse of all they are rude and
arrogant. After 3 weeks of attepting to call them I finally got through
only to be rudely told it is not their problem but the dealer's. I
trodded back to the dealer who did not want to swap the unit saying it
is one month old now (yes 3 weeks of trying to contact psion). I was
told by the dealer to contact Psion technical service again for advice.
By that time I had lost my patience and threaten to take them to court,
the dealer relented and with much cursing swapped the unit. By that time
I had lost interest in the psion and began using my casiopeaia which is
well built and robust. The psion keyboard looks good but is hard to type
on because the keys have almost no travel and the centre of the keyboard
flexes. Secondly for some strange reason keystrikes are either not
registered or registered several times causing a lot of typos. (See
gadgeteer's review's) In actual fact the old casiopeia keyboard is much
more productive. The compact flash slot or plug is faulty on both
machines I had causing intermittent failure to see Drive D. This same
compact flash was used in other machines with no such problems. It is
not only annoying to type a lot of data and suddenly the machine is
unable to save or update your file because drive D is not present.
Connecting to the internet is a pain with the psion whereas it was
amazingly easy with win CE HPCs. The database on the psion is very
limited compared to database programs available like Mobile database
forms for wince. I tried one of the new relational database for the
psion but it was terrible to use. The Psiwin software will interfere and
freezes some notebook trackpad mouse and has to be disabled to use the
mouse.What I like about the psion was the ability to print easily with
the parallel cable or the infra-red port unlike the palm pilot and
window ce devices. The screen is terribly dim and worse if you put a
protective cover on it. Battery last a week with some backlight usage
not a month as claimed. Software are few and expensive. I wrote to psion
to order their Epoc development kit but nobody bothered to reply.
As for my psion now, it lies at the bottom of bed drawer. Why? the
plastic hinge on both sides of the screen has cracked and broken. The
warranty on my psion is over and all the same problems are there. I have
email psion about the numerous problems and funnily I have had no reply
for more than a month now. I now live in Malaysia and there is no way I
am going to ring the technical support line in UK. For the amount of
phone bills I could buy a Casio E11 and a Nino 500.
Buy psion again, no thanks.

Tien Lim

A fair and thorough review....although I must confess that I do not notice the glare problem that you refer to, and not enough emphasis was made in respect of the backlight.

Mark Hendy

Just to let you know. There are two HWR programs for the S5. Allegro, which is of the print letters separately variety and Calligrapher  which will let you train it to recognize your handwriting. Having been a Newton fan for several years I hated to see my 2100 go but the S5 was what I replaced it with and Calligrapher is almost as good as the Newton's. (Of course you still have to do your writng in a separate window but it's better that printing little letters at the bottom of the screen.) Thanks for a great review.
--
Phil Bennett

Let me first say that the Series 5 has the potential to be a great machine.
The operating system is far superior to anything Microsoft has at the moment
and the applications, especially 3rd party ones are great. However, being a
Psion user now for over a year, I must say that the machine does have some
flaws.  First, I agree with you about the screen - it's pretty dismal.  But
worse, some of the built in applications have deficiencies. 

For instance the Sheet app will not sort and will not imbed a graph within
or next to a table of numbers.  To activate a graph you are required to
toggle back and forth between data and graph components.  Secondly, the Word
app has a horribly slow spell checker.  Simply unacceptable!  And then
there's the printing problems.  The Agenda app and the Data app do not work
smoothly with printers.  Printouts are basically unusable with these apps!
The battery life is nowhere near 35 hours.  I typically get just under 10
hours with moderate backlighting.  I use the AC adapter as much as possible.
To make matters worse, the AC connector on the Series 5 could have been
positioned better.  To illustrate, whenever I connect the sync cable to the
Series 5 from my Dell - the cable is connected to the back-left side of the
Series 5.  I also like to connect the AC adapter at the same time.
Unfortunately, this cable is also connected to the left side of the Series
5.  This makes for a tangled mess of wires!  The AC connector should have
been located on the right side.  Other than these complaints the Series 5
works great!

Now as far as hardware quality goes - that's another matter.  Since I've had
my Series 5 (October of 1997), I've had two replacements.  The first unit
was replaced due to a buggy OS.  The unit would work fine one moment, then
lock up!  I contacted Psion's customer support and got a total run around!
I eventually got a replacement, but I'll never forget the poor custom
service I received.  A few months later, the replacement unit began to
flake-off its paint!  Again I had to deal with customer support - what a
fiasco!  Now I'm on my third unit and it's flaking again!  I attempted to
contact Psion numerous times, but knowone ever answers the phone anymore!
So I've given up!   I've handed my Psion Series 5 down to my daughter for
school projects!  I'll be purchasing a Casio E-100 as soon as they are
available!

But worst of all, Psion refuses to upgrade the Series 5 ROM to fix problems
with the built in applications!  At one time Psion had told me an upgrade
would be available last February 1998!  For six months I constantly called
Psion's customer service about the ROM upgrade and was told each time a new
date!  Well the ROM was never upgraded! 

If you want a slick little package that has a potentially great OS with a
few application flaws, a dim screen, poor battery life, flaky paint and the
worst customer support - then be my guest and purchase a Series 5 at your
own risk!

M Valenti

Thank you for your wonderful site.  I am an avid Psion 5 fan from here
in the U.S.  I have also owned the Palmpilot Pro, the CE HP 360 lx, Nino
320 and Psion 3a.  As you can see I like gadgets too.  You wrote an
excellent comprehensive review.  The Series 5 was released in June 1997
and it is rumored to be updated/replaced perhaps this spring.  What was
missing from you review was the Message suite web browser and E-Mail
package.  You are correct about the screen, it needs some improvement.
Did you try the contrast?  The contrast needs to be adjusted
periodically, especially if the unit has been cold. 

They need a color model to compete in the U.S. and that may be in the
works especially since all the new CE units and HPC Pros will have
them.  Reportedly, the  big concern at Psion was the belief that
implementing color would devastate the excellent battery life of the
Series 5. The EPOC 32 OS does, does, in fact, support color.  It is
still well ahead  of CE 2.1.  As a lawyer I have to use both Word and
Wordperfect versions.  I don't believe that CE supports Wordperfect. The
biggest thing missing in the report was the terrific freeware and
shareware programs out there for EPOC 32. Psion and EPOC 32's profile in
the U.S. will be improved through the new Symbian alliance using the OS
in all kinds of mobile devices. 

Thanks.  Chris Stombaugh

I agree with you about the screen and the machine. I had to take mine back.
And I can't wait to buy one when they fix the screen. Except for the screen
it was so much better to use than the WinCE machines. Best of all it works
for a week on AA's. the entire industry is missing how important that is.
Color's great but if it only gets 6-10 hours I might as well go back to
paper.

Mark Baker

I have had a Psion S5 ( and a S3c for 2 years) for about 7 months now. I also own a Philips Velo+ (CE2). Of the two the S5 is definitely the better. It is more robust. Its OS has never crashed (I wish I could say the same for CE2) its keyboard is brilliant. Finally its battery life knocks the spots off any of the WinCE devices.

I have composed large documents on the S5 with graphics and tables something which I wouldn't have the patience to do on the Velo. This is due to the brilliant keyboard and battery life.

Yes, I'm British, but I don't wave the flag or sing the national anthem but this product is SO superior to any of the other keyboard/stylus driven PDAs that I will stick to using it on an everyday basis. Plus have you seen the amount of freeware and shareware for it? I believe the only other handheld with such a cult following is the Palm Pilot.

As a final note. Colour is brilliant and it looks gorgeous but do we REALLY need it on a palmtop? After all no one in their right mind would sacrifice battery life for colour, would they? Check out Wireds interview with 'Woz' of Apple II fame. Its the software and usability of a machine that counts. It is these two fundamentals that have given Palm and Psion their cult folowing. No wonder Bill Gates doesn't like the look of Symbian or Palm.

Ray Cheshire

PS I don't work for Psion or Palm.