Tester: Andrew Claus
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Height: 5 ft – 9 in (175 cm)
Weight: 150 lb (68 kg)
Email: andrewclaus@yahoo.com
Home region: Evergreen, Colorado (Front Range foothills of the Rockies)
Date: November 22, 2004

Backpacking Background:

I live and play in the Colorado Rockies. I through hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, Mexico to Canada, in ’04. I have section hiked the entire Colorado Trail. I hiked Mt. Washington to Mt. Katahdin on the Appalachian Trail in ’02. I have been backpacking, backcountry skiing, and bike touring for over twenty years. I have climbed all 54 of Colorado’s “14ers” (14,000 ft/4,260 m peaks). I get out on day trips into the high country at least once a week, year ‘round, and on backpacking trips several times a year, including at least one in the winter. I also do a lot of outdoor travel as a wildland firefighter.

I’m not a fanatic ultra light packer. My pack base weight is about 13 lb (6 kg). I use a tarp, a bivy, or no shelter at all.

Product Description:

Manufacturer: PocketMail
Product: Composer
MSRP: US$99 for device, $15 +/- per month of service, depending on duration
Year of manufacture: 2004
URL: www.pocketmail.com

The PocketMail Composer (the “device”) is a portable email communication device and personal organizer. It has a small keyboard for input and a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen for output. The device communicates using an audible coupling modem—there’s a telephone-like receiver on the back of the device that is held up to any telephone. There is no hard-wired connection.

Two toll free access numbers and one direct-dial number are printed on the back of the device.

File attachments cannot be sent or received with this device. File attachments can be accessed via the PocketMail website. Outgoing and incoming messages are stored in the device’s memory and on the website. Messages can be deleted either by using the device or the website. Messages are stored for 30 days on the website.

There is no way to access the Internet with this device.

The device casing is plastic and has a large hinge along one long edge. The lid opens to reveal the keyboard on the bottom and the display and main function buttons on the top. The main functions are an inbox/outbox toggle, a message compose function, address book and scheduler. The main page displayed when the power is turned on shows the following functions: “To-Do”, “Memo”, “Calculator”, “Folders”, “Tools”, “Settings”, “Find”, “PC link”, “Memory”.

Message size is limited to 6000 characters for both incoming and outgoing messages (adjustable to lower limits, if desired). An optional signature function can apply a standard ending (up to four lines) to all outgoing messages.

Two “AA” size alkaline batteries (supplied) power the device.

Weight is 8-¼ oz (235 g) with batteries.

Dimensions are: 6.5 in (16 cm) long, 3 in (8 cm) wide, 0.8 in (2 cm) thick. The display screen is 4 in (10 cm) or 40 characters wide, 1.75 in (4.5 cm) or 8 lines high. The size of the phone coupling is adjustable from 4.5 in (11.5 cm) to 5.75 in (14.5 cm), center-to-center. The 5.75 in dimension corresponds to a standard public phone handset.

The device has 512K of memory.

Case color is light gray with black lettering. Key colors are black for letters, dark gray for numbers and shift keys, blue for scrolling and navigating, and maroon for function selection. Key size and spacing are roughly 70% that of a standard keyboard.

Non-letter characters and functions are accessed by a shift key. Among the non-letter characters are some international currency symbols, four different bracket types, and normal punctuation marks. There are no optional fonts, no bold, italics, or underlining features. There is no spell checker function. This is a basic text input device.

I did not use any attachments or accessories with the device.

Field Information:

I used this device over a period of about 140 calendar days and about 2,650 miles (4,270 kilometers) during my through hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. Conditions varied from low desert to alpine snow and ice, temperatures from 20 F to 105 F, (-7 C to 42 C) elevations from sea level to 13,200 ft (4,000 m), from near zero to 100 percent relative humidity. Wind-blown dust and sand were often present. Precipitation exceeded record levels in the Washington Cascades.

Most of the use in adverse conditions was for data input. Communications were usually in an urban setting, at a public telephone or in a motel room. I used a cellular phone in the field only a few times. I used a satellite phone once.

I used a zip lock plastic food storage bag for protection from the elements. The device saw amazingly little physical abuse. I dropped it twice onto soft ground, from roughly waist height.

I never immersed the device in water, or got it wet in rain or condensation. I took great care during water fords and rainstorms to pack the device in several water-resistant layers.

Field Test Report:

Usage notes:

I used this device mainly to compose and send journal updates to an on-line trail journal web site (via a transcriber). I sent over 140 journal entries and sent and received countless personal emails during my trip. I had trouble with about 2 percent of these. When spending a night in town I often sent and received messages 10 or more times. I could "chat" with friends, family and professional affiliates. I estimate that I dialed the toll-free number about 500 times. I had connection problems only twice. Typical time on the phone was between one and five minutes.

My typical outgoing message length was about 4,000 characters. I would usually retain seven or eight messages of this length I would save about half that amount in the inbox. There was always sufficient memory for my use. I never used much more than ten percent of available memory.

I never used the “To-Do” list. I often used the “Memo” pad for shopping lists. I seldom used the calculator, tried using a folder once, and used the “Find” function several times. I never used the PC link in the field (cable and software required). I seldom used the scheduler function, though it was sometimes nice to have a calendar along. I used the signature function for every message. The clock setting was easy to reset (after changing batteries).

I was able to access my PocketMail account on a personal computer whenever I attempted it. This occurred only a few times along the trail.

I used the device once with a small cellular phone in the field. It worked better on a cellular phone with a flip-up cover. I encountered one satellite phone on the trail. The device could not communicate on this phone. Audio conversations had echoes and delays on this phone. All other communications were on a standard phone on a landline.

On several occasions, I could communicate with another hiker who had a similar device. This hiker would often arrive in a town within a day of my arrival, and we could communicate motel locations and local phone numbers, or give updates on trail or town information. Communications with other hikers was possible by contacting their families and getting some delayed news of their locations and progress.

I also was able to communicate with several “trail angels”, and arrange meetings at trailheads and trail towns along the route. This was a very valuable tool, and eased logistic problems tremendously.

Most journal entry input occurred on the trail, sitting on a tree or rock, or lying in a sleeping bag. Posture was not much of a problem for me. I never typed when out in the rain. The most severe environmental problems the device saw was fine sand and dust in the desert. The hinge got quite scratched from fine grains. The keyboard did not have any fatal difficulties with this environment. It was easy enough to keep clean by inverting, brushing, and blowing on it.

I never received SPAM on the device. There were a few marketing messages from PocketMail.

I did not carry any reading material. Having this device to write with eased the loss of reading material for me. There was still a net gain in weight over a small book, so that’s little justification for carrying the device.

In my opinion, the personal organizer features of this device add very little to its usefulness.

I do not use the device any more since I left the trail.

Problems:

I had problems with data corruption several times, with increasing frequency after about three months of use. Data corruption would occur during data input. Several times I would open an existing file, and the file would open as a single column of characters, severely truncated and useless. I could never retrieve the data, and would have to start again—very aggravating, and nearly impossible to recreate some trail thoughts. A couple of other times the file would corrupt during original data entry—entire sections of data would auto-delete. I also had data transmission problems several times, where I could not send or receive messages. I could solve this problem by putting all outgoing messages on “hold”, receive incoming messages, then send outgoing messages one at a time. This was a tedious, annoying solution. Twice I lost an outgoing message. The second time I had learned to save messages until I got confirmation of receipt.

I contacted the manufacturer with these problems. The manufacturer recommended that they perform a remote reset over the phone. This would require complete loss of all data, including valuable addresses. I did not want to risk transcribing this data twice in the field (once to paper and once back to the device). I requested a new device to transcribe the data to and test, and then I would send the old device back. The manufacturer reluctantly agreed. It was several mail drops later that this exchange was achieved. The new device functioned fine for the remainder of the trip (a few weeks).

The old device I sent back was showing some physical wear after nearly 4 months. The print was wearing off the most commonly used keys. The gray paint was wearing off the plastic cover. There were a lot of sand scratches on the hinge.

I accidentally left the device behind twice—once a mile behind on the trail, once in town. Going without the device for four days until retrieving it in the next town was a little like going through addiction withdrawal. (It’s a long story how it got to the next town, but I was very lucky.)

I ran out of battery power in the field once, after about 35 days of use. The device gave a low battery warning, with the admonition that data could be lost if batteries were used further. I followed this advice. I was able to change the batteries about three days after receiving this warning. I did not lose any data. I changed the batteries an additional four times after this at a maximum 30-day interval, and never had a data problem during this operation. I never carried spare batteries in my pack.

There were a few of my addressees who could not receive PocketMail messages on their servers. They could receive messages at home but not at work, for example.

I reached the limit in data input a couple of times. I would receive a text warning to this effect and would stop typing and edit my message. Incoming messages of excessive length would be truncated. I never missed any important information because of this. .

The device cannot be used to compose or edit gear reports in the field. There is not nearly enough message length to affect this.

Device notes:

Display visibility is quite good. I never used the display backlight to save batteries. I always used an LED headlamp at night. I never had a visibility or glare problem. My 47-year-old eyes usually need minor correction for reading small print. But I did not have to use my reading glasses to use this device. Some LCD displays have a narrow angle of optimum viewing—you have to look at them straight on. This display has a fairly wide angle of visibility—it does not fade much over most normal angles. I never experienced eyestrain or fatigue when using this device.

Keyboard: 1) I am an average touch-typist (20 to 30 words per minute). I could use three fingers on each hand on this small keyboard. After several months I became somewhat accomplished. Most annoying was occasionally using a normal keyboard. It would feel huge. It took weeks to acclimate to a normal keyboard after the trip. 2) Deleting text is awkward—there is no delete key. Deleting is done by backspacing over unwanted text. Large blocks of text can be highlighted and deleted by using the backspace key. 3) Cut, copy and paste features work well. 4) Calculator functions are difficult to use. The functions are shown in lighter lettering above several letters, and are in no order I’ve ever seen on a calculator. 5) Key colors were not an important feature for me. I did not need to look at the keys very often. 6) I am surprised at how few typographic errors I made as I read my own journal entries after the trip (www.trailjournals.com/teamgreasepot). I was pleased with the output of the device.

Comparisons to a paper journal: 1) I think I tended to delete outgoing messages too soon. I could not refer back to an entry more than a week in the past. But I may have done the same with a paper journal on this trip. I probably would have sent the paper away at every town stop, just as I deleted messages at every phone. 2) It was nice not to carry any paper. 3) It was easy to edit notes at the end of the day into a comprehensive journal entry. 4) The device is quite heavy for a lightweight packer. It was the only non-essential item in my pack. But it weighed nearly 4% of my base load! 5) I type much better and faster than I write. 6) I reached a very large audience, to my unending surprise.

Summary:

The device became very valuable to me in communicating with new and old friends on the trail. It added an unexpected dimension to the hiking trip.

I was initially skeptical about carrying this relatively heavy device that didn’t keep me warm or fed. But on the few occasions I couldn’t use it I missed it tremendously.

I don’t think I would use the device on a shorter trip, of less than one month, say. The gains I experienced on my last trip were mostly realized near the end of the trip. Voyages that require long periods of time and complex planning can benefit much greater from this type of device.

Of good value was the ability to compose messages while on the trail. I could spend hours writing to friends between town stops, send the messages in a few minutes at a public phone, have a meal, go back to a phone and receive messages, leave town, read replies after getting back on the trail, and continue the cycle.

Another benefit was very easy email access while traveling without having to find a personal computer (PC) to use. At times, I would travel 30 days or more without access to a PC.

Plusses are: a) I was able to easily access a worldwide communication network from my travels in the Western US, b) time savings during town stops while trekking, c) excellent communications can help ease logistical concerns, d) psychological benefits of being in touch, e) good customer service in an unusual situation, f) it’s fun.

Minuses are: a) Some data corruption, b) extra weight, c) reliance on battery power, d) reliance on technology, e) message length is too short for gear reports, f) loss or failure can affect perceptions of a trip—I got addicted, g) extra cost.

Read more reviews of PocketMail gear
Read more gear reviews by Andrew Claus

Owner Review by Andrew Claus

All material on this site is the exclusive property of BackpackGearTest.org.
BackpackGearTest software copyright David Anderson