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The Psion was intended for use as a personal organiser (calender, contacts and notes) as well as to provide some basic office utilities (such as a word processor and spreadsheet) and some entertainment (games and ebooks).
The alternatives at the time, 1989, were rather limited. The traditional Filofax was usually chosen for the organiser (although some rather limited, calculator-style PDAs were available) and a laptop (or even paper) was chosen for work. Entertainment was probably a Walkman or a newspaper!
The Filofax was never an issue, and in reality the Psion is probably no smaller. However, the main attraction was working on documents - which with a laptop involved short battery life (how many trains had at-seat power sockets in 1989?).
Psion offered a lot, and although the programs are rather basic by today's standards, bear in mind that the PC alternative at the time was not much more advanced. (Few PCs were even on networks, let alone the Internet. Most people used cassettes, rather than CD, and probably never heard of the MP3!)
"Psions", as they are often referred to by, were digital organisers (PDAs) built by Psion mainly in the 1990s. They were unique due to a number of features:
All Psions shipped with:
When the Series 3 came out in the late 80s, most other organisers were simple calculator style devices. It was not until the late 90s that Windows CE devices appeared.
The biggest shame with the loss of Psion is the lack of similar alternatives. Most PDAs today are smartphones, or tablet format devices. These lack a keyboard and make many of the features of the Psion impossible to properly implement.
Here is an interesting quote from an article on pdaMD.com:
"I found that, as good and widely supported as the Palm is, there are some things it just won't do. It won't take my Word and Excel documents from my PC so I can take them with me, work on them as I would on the PC, and sync them back when I return. It won't present a nice, wide view of the applications. It won't do serious financial tracking, e.g. stocks and funds. It won't really surf the Web or really do e-mail."
Other alternatives, with a keyboard, include mini-laptops and legacy Windows CE devices. These were typically rather expensive and consumed batteries very fast.
Windows CE turned to the embedded systems (XBox, DVD players, etc) and 'winterm' (call centre) market long ago. The price of Windows CE PDAs usually exceeded the price of laptop PCs - putting consumers off. In addition, software for Windows CE was usually hard to find, incompatible and lacked the freeware movement that Psion and Palm had.
Cutting-edge users typically import equipment from Japan - where Linux-based PDAs (such as the Sharp Zaurus) are available. More recently, the netbook format has emerged where low-cost devices run either Linux or Windows CE. In practice these lack many of the features of a Psion, such as a touch screen and instant on/off. A few companies ship Windows CE netbooks, but these still lack those features.
There are a huge number of Psions still in existance, some are still used and others have been forgotten. Gradually, the later usually appear on sites like eBay.
Typical eBay prices range from about 40GBP for a good Series 3 to 150GBP for a good Series 5mx.
There is also a repair company, based in South London, which sells as well as repairs Psions.
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Copyright Tony Chung 2012.
Any views on this site do not necessarily represent those of myself or others. This page was last updated on Monday 20 September 2010. |