So, we had one of these little gadgets that was sitting around, fairly inoperable, at the bottom of a desk drawer. eBay to the rescue! I have a battery en route, as well as an upgrade sleeve that will accept PC cards. I’ve already got the 4GB SD card. The idea is to get it able to connect to an 802.11 network, as well as play an appreciable amount of MP3s. I mean, the thing has a standard headphone jack right there on the top! It’s practically begging to be turned into a flashy mp3 player, on top of being a PDA and wireless… aw, hell. A palmtop. There, I said it.

Of course, this can’t go easily. I’ve been waiting on the battery forever, and had auctions (like the SD card) that I won after the battery show up before it. If I unplug the A/C adapter, *poof* goes all my data. So, I’ve been in a bit of a holding pattern. At least, when the SD card arrived, I could test it, right? Well, it appears that it doesn’t want to format the card. And while Googling seems to solve most Apple and Linux related questions, not so for HP/Microsoft amalgamations.

The only information I’ve been able to find is outdated. Compatibility listings only go up to 1GB, but there are spotty reports of getting 2GB cards to work. HP’s support won’t even attempt to answer the question because it’s so far out of warrantee. That’s odd to me, because their live support was always great at handling questions about my old Compaq laptop, and it was a Pentium 1. WAY out of date. Perhaps this is a difference between their live support and their email support, and I should try the live support again.

In any case, if any of you has knowledge of such handhelds, and wouldn’t mind shedding some insight in my general direction, I would appreciate it crazy-like. If I have to downgrade to a 2GB, or there’s a software update out there that I need, lay it on me. :)