The last luxury gasp of the Psion 5mx Pro, with Point5 and Mulberry

-

Although I owned a great number of Psion palmtops back in the day, they broke one by one and I was very happy with @sandvixito donated his for me to own and play with. In fact, it was the top of the line Psion 5mx Pro, with reflashable ROM and updates (well, back in the day, anyway), complete with metal Point5 stylus and a luxury Mulberry case.

All very stylish. However, ageing plastic and moving hinges caught up with this unit too and I heard an ominous crack from deep inside - the palmtop had one proper 'open' in it before never closing properly again, I calculated, so if I was ever going to document this classic palmtop in photo form then now was the time.


The deluxe Mulberry leather. Lovely!


Inside, the Psion nestles in a custom container, plus storage for batteries and a paper notebook (remember them?!)


The Psion can fold open while cased, which is a really neat design trick. A laptop within a filofax form factor, almost. This was cutting edge back in 1997!! 


Spare battery storage - the 5mx Pro runs for about a week on two AA alkaline cells.


Booted up and out of the case, I've turned the LED backlight on - yes, you could work in the dark, to a degree! The Psion 5mx Pro boots from an OS image on CF disk and, in theory, you could update this image with a new ROM from Psion. Back in the day!


The form factor is still lovely to this day. Mechanical keys, large touchscreen, etc.


Batteries go in the rollable hinge, plus see the opened comms/data port too. Into this one would typically plug a proprietary cable, which then went into a PC for syncing content and backing up via PsiWin software.


The Psion originally had a plastic stylus, but here there's the aftermarket aluminium Point5 stylus - very nice. Also opened here is the CF door.


Yet more moving parts? Oh yes. A sliding voice memo door, revealing record, stop and play buttons. In hindsight, the Psion designs ended up with so many ports, doors, hinges, springs, that mechanical failure was a day to day reality. 

So yes - this 5mx Pro no longer closes properly and a metal spring pops out at every opportunity, rendering it unusable for anything serious. A great shame. 

But at least this is now photographed - and enjoyed pictorially. A device of its time and for a decade later, perhaps, but 25 year old plastic is now too brittle for mechanical hinging, it seems.

PS. See the Planet Computers range for the spiritual successors - designed by the same person, Martin Riddiford!

PPS. If you like this feature and want to support my work then please do so here via PayPal. Thanks.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wavelet - and better sounding speakers (and headphones) on Android...

-
Image
You may well be fairly happy with the audio output (speakers and headphones) on your existing Android phone. Or, like me, you may welcome an extra step up. Perhaps more bass/punch, clearer treble, or perhaps just a volume boost overall. Now, there have been various 'boost' utilities for Android in the past and they've been a bit patchy in how well they work. But Wavelet, discovered by Ted Salmon back in 2021, is a whole different kettle of fish, in that it works supremely well, with extra bass, clarity, and volume,   BUT has a very confusing interface. Which is why a brief tutorial is in order. The steps come from Ted in bullet point form, but expanded by me here and with screenshots, which will hopefully help. By the way, ignore the 'headphone specific' text in the app's title - it works perfectly well for speakers too. In fact, by definition, I'd say that it's really ONLY for speakers, since with headphones you've usually got plenty of natural i...
Read more

Bluetooth keyboard incorrect PIN or password - SOLVED

-
Image
Just in case this helps anyone else, I had a nightmare today with my Bluetooth keyboard and my Android phone - but I used some common sense and found a geeky solution. In my case it was a ZTE Axon 7 running Lineage OS and a Microsoft Universal Folding Keyboard (UFK), but I suspect this cure will work for more general issues. The symptom was that when I tried to connect a previously paired keyboard I first of all got just the raw Bluetooth address shown and not the keyboard name. And then, when I tried connecting, I got an "incorrect PIN or password" error message. No chance to reenter a PIN and no amount of restarting keyboard or phone would fix it. The cure seemed to be to reset something in the phone's Bluetooth system, but what? The keyboard wasn't showing up as paired, so I couldn't 'forget' it. I tracked it down in the end. Settings, Apps, then 'Show system' on the '...' menu. Find and tap on 'Bluetooth extensions'....
Read more

Why the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max is better than the 15 Pro Max

-
Image
Forgive the click bait(y) title, but there's actual evidence here, I promise. Note that I did write an article before availability, putting forward worries and concerns , but I've now had hands-on to confirm a few things and report back.  Cased (of course, read the blooming' article!) Pro Maxes - 15 and 14 (with XtremeSkin, Aged Oak , in case you're wondering!) In fact, it's the first time ever in the iPhone line-up/evolution that I seriously think the old 'Pro Max' model can be argued to be  better than the new one. (Admittedly, that I already own the old one [14 Pro Max] and didn't really want to spend over £1000 on the 15 Pro Max possibly helps my argument from a personal perspective.) (There's one big win for the new model, of course. Type C connectivity has been a long time coming - but this will take several generations to become established in iPhone/Lightning households and maybe I'll come back to this in a future article.) My observat...
Read more