Vadem Clio

The Vadem Clio is one of our elder devices that hangs out in the house. It dates to 1999, and runs Windows CE H/PC Pro. Its standards are thus now obsolete. I decided to look backwards in time and review it for the sake of it being reviewed.

You can see, looking at the top, that the device is quite different than the devices of today, which is correct. To open it, actually, you don't lift the lid up; rather, you push up one of the side hinges from the side and turn the display...

And this is what it looks like.

The device is rather unusual in this manner because that is how you open it. I have not heard of anything of today that can do this at all.

Looking from the side, you see that we have a PC card slot. Note the hinge that opens it is round. It houses the battery, so it's a little heavy at the back. It should make a good grip as well.

On the other side, we have a power connector, a dock connector, and a 33.6 Kb modem, as well as an infrared port. I doubt it's compatible with anything besides its kind now.

But that isn't what makes the Clio so special. It is said that it's ability to turn the display around and close makes it special. It looks like this:

This is why it has 2 hinges.

It's difficult to open the battery case, but when you do, it looks like this:

Notice that I put a CF card in there for extra storage.

Design-wise, I think it's a little tough to get used to, but eventually you will get used to it. It weighs about 3 pounds with the battery.

Specs-wise, it isn't much. It only has an adjustable 16 MB of RAM, which stores every bit of data, lose those on storage cards. If the battery is removed, a "hard reset" occurs, making you lose all data. It is also a tad slow as a result.

You can use ActiveSync 3.8 to connect it to the PC, but it may need a serial-to-USB plug for those who use newer computers. Windows Vista users are out of luck, and Windows XP SP3 users may experience a BSOD every now and then.

Now, let's get into the software.

This is the Windows CE desktop. It resembles Windows 95-2000 and NT4. I added a utility in.

Above is the start menu. Suspend is the only way to turn the Clio off; the power button does the same thing.

There are several programs included with the Clio; they include a Word, Excel, and Access editor, and a PowerPoint Viewer; Outlook apps (Outlook must not have been the way it is today until Outlook 2000.); and te Vadem ViewFinder, shown below.

(I removed a phone number as well.)

Here is the Windows Explorer window...

And here is the Control Panel.

They aren't much, but they do the job anyway.

So it makes a pretty good device, eh? It is outdated, so you'd need to hunt for drivers (example here), and it's slow, but you shouldn't have much worry. It makes a good drawing pad and typing machine. I think devices like the HP Jornada 728 will do a better job being a companion to your PC than the Clio, but both work just as well.

So overall, it's good enough.

Pros: It's only elder than other devices, so it's still useful.

Cons: It's old enough to get you searching for drivers. It's also slow. The web broswer is too old and alternatives may not always suffice for you. (One that works is shareware.)

Overall: It's good enough.

Rating: 8.9/10

Requirements:

Windows XP

Activesync 3.5-3.8 (3.8 recommended)

Serial port or adapter