New Toy

I have received my Sworche:Mover MP5 Player in the mail today from DealExtreme:(SKU 28877).

I was asked by a number of companies to source an affordible 'mini' PDA. I figured that repurposing a handheld game&mpeg player would be the only way we could stay within the $50 price envelope set by cellphones with PDA capabilities while remaining fabless.

I've intentionally broken and repaired it already and I have to say that the build and design quality are to par with what my clients are seeking, and significantly higher than I was expecting (which was not great). This appears to have been repackaged as packing the materials and methods of each of the accessories are different from each other, and what is discribed by vendor. The distributor tells me that this is because of their quality control checks. This would also explain why thie unit has evidence of having been cycled (charded, discharged, configured and fully feature tested).

With little modification I should be able to add touch, USB and bluetooth host capabilities; however the software needs significant work, especially the spectrum analyser.

Fortunately my clients are companies of software developers who are responding to requests by three different distributors. Two of which have tried to deploy what are now being called 'mini PDAs' due to a trademark infringement suit.

Because of a confict of intrest I terminated relations with one client when another offered me a permanent position- shortly before that company tanked. So this player will be my USB drive/e-book reader for the time being.

Edit: LOL, I just noticed that there was no opening in the case for the "Opuonal" camera.