Times2 Tech / PCE2000 256MB iPAQ Upgrade

Gadgeteer Hands On Review by Julie

January 23, 2002

Product Requirements:
Device:
Compaq iPAQ 31/36/37/3800 series Pocket PCs

I feel like singing "nanny nanny noo noo" while I wiggle my fingers and put my thumbs in my ears! Why, you ask? Because I am the proud owner of the very first 256MB Compaq 3835 iPAQ Pocket PC! Yes, you read that correctly, 256 wonderful megabytes that are mine, all mine!!!! Ok, I'll try to contain myself long enough to tell you more about this upgrade that you too can have... for a price!

You may have read our earlier reviews of the 64MB upgrade and 128MB upgrades as performed by Times2 Tech. Judie was the lucky one to get the 128MB upgrade for her iPAQ, so after I purchased my 3835 unit, I fired off an email to Mack at Times2 Tech to see if there was any way to upgrade my Pocket PC to 256MB. Although they had already been doing 256MB upgrades on the 36/3700 series iPAQs, they had yet to perform one on the new 3800 series. Of course, I was more than happy to sacrifice mine to be the guinea pig! :o) Judie was super jealous when I told her about it... Even though she doesn't use an iPAQ anymore, she wished she could have the upgrade on her Casio E200.

Before I go any further, here's a little background about the team that makes these Pocket PC memory upgrades possible. The 'team' is actually comprised of two separated companies: Times2 Tech and Portable Computer Enhancements (PCE2000).  They joined forces and talents to do memory (and other) upgrades for Pocket PCs. So, no matter which company you go with for memory upgrades, you'll see that they share the same pricing structure and great service.

Typically, you ship your iPAQ to them, and about 4 days later, you'll receive your upgraded iPAQ back to your door! Super fast service! I also found that both Mack from Times2 Tech and Leonard from PCE2000 were always very quick to respond to my emails.

Although it usually only takes 4 days to get your unit back to you, it took mine a few weeks. That's because it was the very first 3800 that they had worked with. This new model iPAQ has a different motherboard which required some detective work to find the right trace that enabled the extra 128MB.

After this 'problem' was solved, they were able to use a new upgrade process that they developed that enables the use of lower priced memory chips instead of really expensive hi-capacity memory chips. They named this process the Stacked Memory Upgrade because that's exactly what they do, stack chips!

As you can see from the images above, the leads of the chips are bent in a special way so that they can be stacked and soldered together. Below you can see an actual picture of two stacked and soldered chips.

By itself, the Compaq iPAQ is only capable of recognizing a maximum of 64MBs of memory. To get around this restriction, a special software driver must be installed to allow the rest of the memory to become available. The driver is very small (37k). Once it is installed (Times2 Tech or PCE2000 do this for you before sending back your unit), the Asset Manager and Memory Manager will still only show 64MB, but the additional 192MB will show in File Explorer as "T2T Disk". Think of it and use it just like you would SD or CF cards that show up as "Storage Card" or "Storage Card2" in the file manager when you copy files, or when you install software using ActiveSync.

If you ever have to do a hard reset on your PDA, you will need to install the driver again before you can access the extra memory. Also, any data on the T2TDISK will not be erased unless a hard-reset is performed.

Other than displaying the total memory and total memory free on the T2TDISK, the driver is also a utility that allows you to format, rename the disk from T2TDISK to something else, and perform memory tests.

I've had my upgraded iPAQ back for a little over a week now and I have to say that I absolutely love all this extra memory. I find that I'm not using the CF sleeve much at all now. I've been installing all my applications on the T2TDISK and leaving the regular 64MB of RAM alone. If I want to listen to MP3's or read ebooks, I save them to my 128MB SD card. This practice has been working well for me so far and I really like carrying the naked iPAQ!

Of course, you will probably be wondering if this upgrade will have any effect on battery life... The guys at Times2 Tech and PCE2000 told me that based on their 3600 series testing, power on usage would be reduced by about 5% or less. However, suspend time will be shortened considerably. On the 3600/256, suspend time on a full battery is 3 days max instead of 4 to 5 days on unmodified units.

I'm in the process of doing some of my own tests with my upgraded 3835. This review will be updated as more data is collected (I'm having Judie do some tests with her unmodified 3835 as a comparison).

My first test was to totally charge the iPAQ (naked, without any sleeves) and then to record the battery percentage as displayed in the Power Settings application every 2 hrs. The only steps I performed were to turn the unit on, navigate to the Power app, record the battery percentage and turn the unit off. Here are my results:

Time	Battery Percentage
12pm	100%
2pm	98%
4pm	96%
6pm	94%
8pm	92%
10pm	90%

Judie did the same test on her unmodified 3835, and here are the results:

Time	Battery Percentage
8am	100%
10am	98%
12pm	98%
2pm	96%
4pm	96%
6pm	95%
8pm	94%

For my 2nd test, I decided to see how much life I could get out of one charge with regular usage. Here's what I've come up with so far on this charge (I'll update again tomorrow). The test was started with a full charge and with a CF sleeve 256MB CF card installed the whole time.

Charge	Time	On Time	Task
100%	9:15am (Day1)	-	Power on after charging
88%	9:15 - 10:10am	55min	MP3 listening with screen turned off
88%	10:10 - 11:00am	-	Powered off
84%	11:00 - 11:15am	15min	MP3 listening with screen turned off
83%	11:15 - 12:45pm	-	Powered off
67%	12:45 - 2:00pm	75min	MP3 listening with screen turned off
67%	2:00 - 2:30pm	-	Powered off
61%	2:30 - 3:00pm	30min	MP3 listening with screen turned off
59%	3:00 - 3:10pm	10min	MP3 listening with screen turned off
54%	3:10 - 10:20pm	-	Powered off
0% (not dead)	10:20pm (Day1) - 8:30am (Day2)	-	Powered off
Total "on time" for one charge was 3hrs, 5min

Three hours sure doesn't sound like much, does it? But unfortunately, It's only about 25mins less than what I remember getting with my 3650.

Remember at the beginning of this review when I said that you too could have this upgrade, for a price? Well, the price for this mod is quite hefty... at $499, this isn't going to be something that everyone will want or be able to afford. Heck, it's $100 less than the price of the 3835 itself! That said, this is another one of those mods that diehard iPAQ people drool over.  Just like a car enthusiast is always looking for something that will make his engine faster, the extreme PDA enthusiast is always looking for things that make his or her PDA stand out and push the limits. So, if you have the cash and need a memory fix, this is really the ultimate! On the other hand, if you don't have that much cash, you can always by the largest SD memory card that you can afford.

(If you don't have an iPAQ and are interested in memory upgrades for your Pocket PC, be sure and check their respective sites to see the upgrades available for your model)

Price: $499 (includes 2nd day return shipping)

Pros:
Professional, quick and excellent workmanship
More memory for storing programs, applications, e-books, MP3s, etc.

Cons:
Very expensive
Voids your Compaq warranty
Shortens idle battery time