iPAQ Expansion Pack Plus Sleeve

A year ago, when I first started looking at PDA’s, I knew I wanted a Pocket PC instead of a Palm. After all, I’m a Microsoft Engineer… it wouldn’t be right to have anything but a Pocket PC. Besides, I wanted to do more with the PDA than just hold phone numbers. I did a side by side comparison of the current iPAQ devices and the HP Jornada 568. The HP was brighter and had a longer battery life. It had better features than the iPAQ of the time. I liked the fact it would take CF cards since they were cheaper and larger capacities. A year later, I had to replace my Jornada. I opted for the iPAQ 3955. The price was good at $499 at Best Buy. The 5450 was available, but I didn’t need all those options (or the high price). It had an amazingly bright display. However, it was missing the CF slot I was used to. I already had several compact flash cards and a Wi-Fi CF card as well. I needed something that would allow me to use that memory. I use my PDA as a MP3 player quite a bit. My 512MB CF card would just go to waste if I didn’t have one of these expansion packs.

Compaq makes two versions of the Expansion Pack Plus devices. They offer the Compact Flash and the PC Card (PCMCIA Type II) versions. The CF version sells for $99 while the PC Card version is about $139. The PC Card version will take any type II PCMCIA card, including hard drives. Keep in mind, you still need a PocketPC 2002 driver for that device. Not all manufacturers have created those drivers. The extended battery is another $99. These devices are compatible with the HP iPAQ Pocket PC H5400, H3900, H3800, H3700, H3600, H3100 Series

The Compact Flash Expansion Pack ($99 retail). It’s shown here with the slim battery. It will hold either Type I or Type II CF cards. Memory cards are all Type I cards. The Type II cards include IBM Microdrives and GPS units.	The extended expansion pack battery (rated at 1840 mAh…that’s double of the internal battery), but it does add a lot of weight and thickness to the device.	The PC Card expansion pack (shown with the slim battery). It accepts Type II PCMCIA cards or hard drives. You can use a PCMCIA card to access CF cards with this device.

I first purchased the CF Expansion Pack for $39.95. It didn’t have a 2nd battery and the battery life wasn’t what I expected since I use the PDA extensively. I checked into the Expansion Pack Plus. The difference is the ‘Plus’ version comes with an external battery. I also bought the ‘Extended Battery”. It’s rated at 1840 mAh (double of the slim battery). That should last me a LONG TIME! Well… it sorta does.

The 3800 series (and older devices) uses the extended battery in a different way. The external battery was designed to trickle charge the internal battery. In essence, you should see the internal battery go down and then slowly be charged again by the external battery. The 3900 series (and 5400 series from what I’ve seen) handles it a little different. The newer models drain the external battery first. When it reaches 20%, a warning appears. It’s rather annoying, but you just click OK to make it disappear. The external battery does not supply power for the CF card. It just makes the internal battery rest until needed. Eventually, the external battery will drain to 10% and then the internal battery takes over. The OmegaOne Battery Pack program didn’t detect this at first. It kept telling me I had 8 hours of life left. It wasn’t until I let the external battery drain almost completely and start on the internal before it doubled the estimated time. Battery monitors CANNOT accurately detect the power left in extended batteries. My battery program now shows 18 hours when fully charged with the slim battery installed. I get the same estimated time with the extended battery as well.

I find it useful to have both external batteries since they can be charged and swapped on the fly (with the power still turned on). The device is a hefty weight with the extended battery. It’s slightly over 11 oz. with the bigger battery. It also has a hard time fitting in my zip-up case.

Do I recommend the Expansion Pack Plus? Yes, I do. Anyone who uses their PDA continually could benefit from having an extra battery. Whether you want the PCMCIA or CF version, it’s nearly the same. The PCMCIA version does drain the battery a little more vigorously than the CF version. I give the device a 4 out of 5 stars because of the warning screen. It seems to me a little bit of an overkill. The device won’t die if the external battery goes dead. It just switches to the internal battery. I’m sure that’s a drive issue for the expansion pack. HP/Compaq could rewrite the driver for the 3900 and 5400 series devices.

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