I had one of these when they came out, and used it a lot. I used a program to connect up my dive computer via serial to show me my depth over time, wrote half a book on it, and you missed out the inbuilt programming language OPL. This was really great fun to try stuff out on the go. I actually wrote a z80 disassembler on it whilst away from home for 6 weeks. I thought it might be fun to write my own Speccy emulator, but never got around to the rest of it :) Back in the day my mobile phone (pre 3g) had an infrared port on it, and I used to send email on the go by connecting to the modem on the phone via the infrared port on the Psion. There was a surprising amount you could do with them
These were great machines. I had a Series 3c for a while, and then I upgraded to a Series 5. I always wanted a 5MX. The irony is that I was skint and the machines were quite old when I got them, but I was lucky enough to have a pocket computer before most people had even thought of it. I'd be sitting on a train and reading downloaded documents and playing games etc. Incredible battery life too. The mini-laptop style keyboard is amazing. When I got more into writing, I had to wean myself off using it as my word processor. Unfortunately, the internal ribbon connector for the screen was the Achilles Heel of the 5, and a lot of them broke. I've got a couple of machines packed away. One is in a leatherette wallet and the other one is in a plastic hardcase. Don't suppose they'll ever see active service again. Obviously, the rather weak Internet connectivity meant that they got used less and less. After that, I ended up with a couple of Palm devices that were crap compared to the Psion, but had better syncing, and frankly, it was a bit easier to use when out and about because it didn't need to be opened up and it didn't attract as much attention. Amazing little machines. Sometimes, you buy a gadget and end up not using it much, but I remember thinking that the 3c and the Series 5 were two of the best investments I ever made. Spent MANY hours on them. I think what happened in the end is that Microsoft got into mobile computing, and rather than go out of business, Psion just started making industrial mobile devices.
+rhydermike I think the keyboard with it is one of the best I've used for such a small portable device. Surprising no other company has really come up with anything to match it.
I have bought recently Psion Series 3 classic. It is my first Psion ever. But not the first PDA - I have Sharp hc4100, Dell Axim, Nokia Commuicators and many more. But since the day I got it I completely loved it! Its awesome! Really convenient, reings as a reminder! Yeah, its not a unique function-I had a reminder on mu Casio Diary too. But here menu is very logical, buttons convenient. I dont know-its like madness)) And now I use it everyday. Even though it is pretty heavy for its size especially when I installed additional memory card. But quality of епу casing is great. For example, Casio data banks are a iniques products, some of them are even genial for the time they were manifactured (like Casio Spreadsheet and others). But they casing has a fault- after 10-20 years theu soft touch body becomes sticky. Its a common problem. But maybe Casio never expected its devices to be used after so many years... Anyways, Psion iuter part of body is great. Some people say there are problems with hinges and flexi cable. I hope, everythings gonna be allright with mine. Its sad that Psion is no longer manifactured. As well as Nokias communicators using Psions OS EPOC named Symbian.
Great. No one would believe that such an old device coyld teally help a busy man. By the way, I won Psion 5mx Pro with 2r mb memory on board and now I am waiting inpatiently. Whilst in progress, I have read almost all the articles about 5mx but reading is one thing and havine is other. Mine 5mx pro is a german version. Sonce I know a little german it wont be a problem. But I havent read much about pro series what are the critical differences from mx.
I don't know if you have already tried it or not, the compact flash disk might work better if you got a smaller size. Like a 64Mb rather then the 1Gb you are trying to use.
+mssusie47 Have a look at the first link in the Description. I've added a link to a website with lots of apps, extras and a full list of good websites to visit. Enjoy!
The styluses (styli) for the iPad and the Psion are NOT the same. One is capacitive and the other is resistive. Furthermore, the backup battery was there just to preserve the battery. You could not continue to use the device on it once the main batteries were depleted.
The original tip of the stylus is not rubber, it's hard plastic - probably polyamide for easier strokes and glides. The office programs built in are amazingly fully featured - they even support a technology similar to OLE, which allows you to insert a document of one type into a document of another. Everything is insanely RAM efficient, and robust. When you run out of storage, the document is still safe, you simply can't type another character. I wonder whether you might have damaged the CF socket when trying to force in the card upside down, normally it's 100% reliable.
Not sure but I heard from a few people that they've had similar issues. It was a great device though, used it at work for a couple of years before I switched to something newer.
Got one of these of ebay about 5 years ago for about 50$ US (now worth 100 to 150 US $), still working beautifully. No need to use original file transfer program ( as the man in the video said , it does not work in Windows 7 or 10, even it did run you would need a ye-oldie serial port on your PC plus psion cables. But no problem , cus you can insert a bog standard pc flash card into the psion, (ensure to format using the psion built in format program) and hay-presto your win 10 pc will read and write files via usb port using a cheap flash card reader. Can then download psion games , etc and install from flash drive, plus back up all of your psion data files !! easy as ABC, have fun , Paul down-under in Australia.
There were two big problems with the 5mx. The first was the screen The 3 had a brilliant screen, readable in daylight and had a bright backlight. I can't think of any environment I couldn't use it in. The 5mx had to add two layers to the screen. The first was the touch sensitive surface and the second was a scratch resistant layer so the metal stylus didn't mark up the screen. The combination made the screen pick up glare from everywhere. It might have been better if the screen angle was adjustable but it was fixed. It was somewhat better with the backlight on but that defeated the whole idea of long battery life. I don't know why Psion thought this screen would be acceptable to most users. The second huge problem was the ribbon cable between the screen and motherboard. It wasn't very flexible, poorly engineered and placed, and would eventually crack from the stresses of repeated opening and closing of the keyboard. It really didn't matter how gentle you were, the cable would eventually break. A broken cable leaves vertical or horizontal bars, no display at all, and disables the touch screen. It usually did it when the machine was out of warranty so the bill to fix it was on you. You can get a new and better cable from a company called Psionflexi in the UK. Replacing the cable is a daunting task if you don't have good soldering skills. The cable itself is 15 pounds or you can have them do it for at 60 pounds. If you're in the US you have to pay the freight from here to the UK and back. By the time you're done it's going to cost about USD $100. It's unfortunate the 5mx wasn't more reliable or it might have more users today. There must be tens of thousands of broken 5mx's in desk drawers all over the world.
pretty cool, and it taking CF cards is pretty flexible... what is the limit? 1gb? Yeah if you do some stuff with it, why not shoot a quick video showing it... i mean you already put out a pile of GX4000 videos so what could this possibly do to harm your channel?
+MrDebauch Its meant to have a 128MB limit on CF cards but it's running just fine off a 2GB one. I'll probably do some more gameplay vids, its such a strange device just wasn't sure there'd be much interest.
Thanks for watching! I filmed this after first getting it but in the end I bought a stylus for something else and pulled the end off it (plus a bit of glue!). Slid it into the top of the Psion one and it worked perfectly.
I had one of these when they came out, and used it a lot. I used a program to connect up my dive computer via serial to show me my depth over time, wrote half a book on it, and you missed out the inbuilt programming language OPL. This was really great fun to try stuff out on the go. I actually wrote a z80 disassembler on it whilst away from home for 6 weeks. I thought it might be fun to write my own Speccy emulator, but never got around to the rest of it :) Back in the day my mobile phone (pre 3g) had an infrared port on it, and I used to send email on the go by connecting to the modem on the phone via the infrared port on the Psion. There was a surprising amount you could do with them
+CurryKitten I'm amazed at just how much it can do considering how tech was at the time. It was years ahead of anything else, in software too.
Lorfarius The word processor even had object linked embedding. I loved that machine.
I'm still using mine, it's a great little machine!
The idea of having a fully programmable "computer" in your pocket felt like a sci-fi back in the days.
These were great machines. I had a Series 3c for a while, and then I upgraded to a Series 5. I always wanted a 5MX. The irony is that I was skint and the machines were quite old when I got them, but I was lucky enough to have a pocket computer before most people had even thought of it. I'd be sitting on a train and reading downloaded documents and playing games etc. Incredible battery life too.
The mini-laptop style keyboard is amazing. When I got more into writing, I had to wean myself off using it as my word processor. Unfortunately, the internal ribbon connector for the screen was the Achilles Heel of the 5, and a lot of them broke.
I've got a couple of machines packed away. One is in a leatherette wallet and the other one is in a plastic hardcase. Don't suppose they'll ever see active service again.
Obviously, the rather weak Internet connectivity meant that they got used less and less. After that, I ended up with a couple of Palm devices that were crap compared to the Psion, but had better syncing, and frankly, it was a bit easier to use when out and about because it didn't need to be opened up and it didn't attract as much attention.
Amazing little machines. Sometimes, you buy a gadget and end up not using it much, but I remember thinking that the 3c and the Series 5 were two of the best investments I ever made. Spent MANY hours on them. I think what happened in the end is that Microsoft got into mobile computing, and rather than go out of business, Psion just started making industrial mobile devices.
+rhydermike I think the keyboard with it is one of the best I've used for such a small portable device. Surprising no other company has really come up with anything to match it.
I have bought recently Psion Series 3 classic. It is my first Psion ever. But not the first PDA - I have Sharp hc4100, Dell Axim, Nokia Commuicators and many more. But since the day I got it I completely loved it! Its awesome! Really convenient, reings as a reminder! Yeah, its not a unique function-I had a reminder on mu Casio Diary too. But here menu is very logical, buttons convenient. I dont know-its like madness)) And now I use it everyday. Even though it is pretty heavy for its size especially when I installed additional memory card. But quality of епу casing is great. For example, Casio data banks are a iniques products, some of them are even genial for the time they were manifactured (like Casio Spreadsheet and others). But they casing has a fault- after 10-20 years theu soft touch body becomes sticky. Its a common problem. But maybe Casio never expected its devices to be used after so many years... Anyways, Psion iuter part of body is great. Some people say there are problems with hinges and flexi cable. I hope, everythings gonna be allright with mine. Its sad that Psion is no longer manifactured. As well as Nokias communicators using Psions OS EPOC named Symbian.
It's a great device, I'm still using mine day to day!
Great. No one would believe that such an old device coyld teally help a busy man. By the way, I won Psion 5mx Pro with 2r mb memory on board and now I am waiting inpatiently. Whilst in progress, I have read almost all the articles about 5mx but reading is one thing and havine is other. Mine 5mx pro is a german version. Sonce I know a little german it wont be a problem. But I havent read much about pro series what are the critical differences from mx.
24 mb
Managed to salvage a 5 classic with Ericsson MC218 parts here in 2020. It feels new again and I was lucky with all parts.
Awesome, the memory cards can be very unreliable so be careful with what you use.
Please there is a way to get the software file again for Download is no more available? Thank you
It's all in the description, please follow the link.
I don't know if you have already tried it or not, the compact flash disk might work better if you got a smaller size. Like a 64Mb rather then the 1Gb you are trying to use.
Yeah, i ended up trying a smaller card several months after upload and it was much better!
Hello,
I am considering of getting one of these little computers and just wanted to ask you which websites you would recommend for the apps?
Thank you
+mssusie47 Have a look at the first link in the Description. I've added a link to a website with lots of apps, extras and a full list of good websites to visit. Enjoy!
so no one has gotten the software to work with windows 10 like they have with the palm os?
no idea but there's a Psion MX group on Facebook that might know.
The styluses (styli) for the iPad and the Psion are NOT the same. One is capacitive and the other is resistive. Furthermore, the backup battery was there just to preserve the battery. You could not continue to use the device on it once the main batteries were depleted.
Will these games work with the Psion 5 8mb model? is it the same install files?
Yes I believe so. A lot are compatible with the 3 and 7 range of Psions.
Lorfarius ok thanks!!!
Any problems with your Psion there's also a Psion Users Facebook group. Loads of people in there with different models if you get stuck :)
Thanks heaps
The original tip of the stylus is not rubber, it's hard plastic - probably polyamide for easier strokes and glides.
The office programs built in are amazingly fully featured - they even support a technology similar to OLE, which allows you to insert a document of one type into a document of another. Everything is insanely RAM efficient, and robust. When you run out of storage, the document is still safe, you simply can't type another character.
I wonder whether you might have damaged the CF socket when trying to force in the card upside down, normally it's 100% reliable.
Not sure but I heard from a few people that they've had similar issues. It was a great device though, used it at work for a couple of years before I switched to something newer.
Finally here comes the real review.
Nice man. Not a bad system at all!
Got one of these of ebay about 5 years ago for about 50$ US (now worth 100 to 150 US $), still working beautifully. No need to use original file transfer program ( as the man in the video said , it does not work in Windows 7 or 10, even it did run you would need a ye-oldie serial port on your PC plus psion cables. But no problem , cus you can insert a bog standard pc flash card into the psion, (ensure to format using the psion built in format program) and hay-presto your win 10 pc will read and write files via usb port using a cheap flash card reader. Can then download psion games , etc and install from flash drive, plus back up all of your psion data files !! easy as ABC, have fun , Paul down-under in Australia.
Be very careful with the memory on the system. Backup everything as they can wipe them easily.
4th word: 6:15
It might not have MP3 but if it's Wave it's better anyway other than the size of the damn file.
+Daniel Cordell It doesn't have a headphone jack and the speaker is pretty poor. So no use for listening to music.
There were two big problems with the 5mx. The first was the screen The 3 had a brilliant screen, readable in daylight and had a bright backlight. I can't think of any environment I couldn't use it in. The 5mx had to add two layers to the screen. The first was the touch sensitive surface and the second was a scratch resistant layer so the metal stylus didn't mark up the screen. The combination made the screen pick up glare from everywhere. It might have been better if the screen angle was adjustable but it was fixed. It was somewhat better with the backlight on but that defeated the whole idea of long battery life. I don't know why Psion thought this screen would be acceptable to most users.
The second huge problem was the ribbon cable between the screen and motherboard. It wasn't very flexible, poorly engineered and placed, and would eventually crack from the stresses of repeated opening and closing of the keyboard. It really didn't matter how gentle you were, the cable would eventually break. A broken cable leaves vertical or horizontal bars, no display at all, and disables the touch screen. It usually did it when the machine was out of warranty so the bill to fix it was on you. You can get a new and better cable from a company called Psionflexi in the UK. Replacing the cable is a daunting task if you don't have good soldering skills. The cable itself is 15 pounds or you can have them do it for at 60 pounds. If you're in the US you have to pay the freight from here to the UK and back. By the time you're done it's going to cost about USD $100. It's unfortunate the 5mx wasn't more reliable or it might have more users today. There must be tens of thousands of broken 5mx's in desk drawers all over the world.
the contrast will slowly reduce over the years, but it;s worth fiddling with contrast controls in control panel , with descent lighting , not too bad.
pretty cool, and it taking CF cards is pretty flexible... what is the limit? 1gb?
Yeah if you do some stuff with it, why not shoot a quick video showing it... i mean you already put out a pile of GX4000 videos so what could this possibly do to harm your channel?
+MrDebauch Its meant to have a 128MB limit on CF cards but it's running just fine off a 2GB one. I'll probably do some more gameplay vids, its such a strange device just wasn't sure there'd be much interest.
your stylus is broken. It is missing the plastic nub on the end. Be careful that you don't scratch the screen. great review
Thanks for watching! I filmed this after first getting it but in the end I bought a stylus for something else and pulled the end off it (plus a bit of glue!). Slid it into the top of the Psion one and it worked perfectly.