Vaja is a high quality leather case company located in Argentina. This is a review of their Palm V series belt clip case. This play through case comes in a variety of colors: black alligator w/black leather, brown alligator w/brown leather, blue nubuck w/brown leather, green nubuck w/brown leather, horse leather(w/hair) w/black matt leather, brown ostrich w/brown leather, black ostrich w/black leather, and brown leather (all are made of embossed cow leather except the horse leather version which is actually made of horse leather).
This classy case is made extremely well. I think it competes directly against the Ondata Palm V case for a very high quality case.
The case has a flip up cover which is padded and has a stiff insert to protect the screen. On the inside of the cover are 2 business card slots and one large pocket which is behind the two card slots. The cover is held in place with a Velcro strap that wraps around and attaches to the bottom of the case. The cover fits flush against the case when it is closed. Even though I’m not a big fan of Velcro, this method works much better than the method that the E&B Palm V Slipper case uses to secure the screen cover.
| On the outside of the cover is a small metal badge with VAJA inscribed in it. Usually, I don’t care for insignias on cases, but I kind of like this one.The Palm V slides into the case from the top and is a nice snug fit. There are cutouts for the power button and two stylus silos. The application buttons and up/down scroll buttons can also be accessed without any problems. I didn’t have any trouble playing games that required using these buttons. Even though the leather is thick, it didn’t seem to get in the way.The back of the case is padded and is a nice thick leather. It is much more substantial than the back of the E&B Palm V Slipper. The thickness of the leather and padding do increase the overall size but not enough to complain about. The case is lined with a softer light brown leather which is very pleasing to the touch. |
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On the back of the case is a plastic stud that the swivel belt clip attaches to. I would rather this be a metal stud instead of a plastic one. The belt clip itself is small and attaches to your belt. It can accommodate belts up to ~ 1.25 inches wide. This might not be big enough for some wider men’s belts.The clip itself stays on your belt. The PDA can swivel back and forth while on the clip. To remove the PDA, you have to rotate the PDA till it is upside down and then pull up and off the clip. This feels awkward to me and always required me to use two hands to actually remove the PDA. I really prefer the type of belt clips that E&B cases use. They have a button that you press that releases the stud so that you can remove the case. You can get the Vaja case without a belt clip if you wish. |
A great feature of the Vaja cases is the ability to customize them (for a separate fee). You can personalize the case with your name or company logo on the inside of the case next to the power button. Up to 30 characters on one line. The price is $10 and will delay your order for 3 days. The inside lining behind the PDA can also be embossed with up to 300 characters in 12 lines of text. This costs $30 and delays your order 10 days. The inside cover has a basic graffiti reference chart. Instead you can get an advanced chart with symbols or no chart at all. The advanced or no chart will delay the order for 5 days.
What is nice is that once you do get a personalized case, you don’t have to pay for the personalization a second time. If you want 10 cases with your company logo, you only have to pay for the logo once.
I really like the Vaja Palm V case. It is made very well, provides adequate protection to your PDA, and can be uniquely personalized. It is also quite a bit less expensive than the Ondata case.
Product Information
| Price: | $49.90 |
| Manufacturer: | Vaja |
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Hi Judie,
Could you let us know if you can charge an odd number of batteries? 1 at a time or 3.
I have some FRS radios that use 3 batteries, and I think it would be easier, and perhaps better for the batteries, to charge the set of 3. Some chargers won’t handle that.
Thanks for the info.
Cheers,
Ray
Looks like a good deal. I use the BM-200 charger that came with my Olympus camera. Does an excellent job on my NiMH batteries, full charge in approx 4 hours. Small and world voltage capable. One other charger to consider is the MAHA 204, widely regarded as the best charger available. A little more expensive, but well worth it, at least if you believe the reviews it has received. Need an extra adapter for UK though.
MAHA
Ray,
I believe you really need to charge either two or four for it to work properly, but with the over-charge protection I think (hope) your batteries would be safe. I suppose you could just rotate them out…
Judie :0)
Pacific85, you may want to look into the Maha C-401FS.
I’d also like to point out that I’ve owned NEXcell batteries, and they have failed. At first they performed very well, as you experienced. Within a few months they became useless and wont’ even power on my Olympus digital camera. This is not an isolated incident, as Imaging-Resource had the same problem in their test of many NiMH batteries. I suggest visiting that site to see which brands did well.
They also reccommend the Maha C-204F, which I use. The batteries do get warm during charging, but I usually place a fan in front of my charger while I’m charging batteries to help keep them cool.
After I have used these for several more months, I will definitely post my results.
I would like to point out that this type battery is probably not the best one for a digital camera to begin with. Lithium-Ion would be better – however for the money (meaning less of it), I am happy with these.
Judie :0)
I read your response, Judie, and realized what I said may not have been clear. What I meant is that NEXcell brand NiMH batteries fail while those from other companies do not. NiMH batteries are a good choice for digital cameras as well as Lithium-Ion.
Ah, okay…
Well – right now they are working very well. If I see in the furture that their performance slacks off, then I will definitely make note of it here and in the review.
Thanks!
Judie :0)
Alkaline batteries are not a good idea for most digital cameras. They are unable to deliver enough current almost out of the box. Once they are about 20% used up, they can fail to meet the demand placed on them by most cameras, even though they will be quite happy to live the rest of their life in a less demanding device. Same goes for Alkaline rechargeable batteries. NiCADs are fine for cameras. They will supply enough current throughout their discharge. The advantage of NiMH batteries is that they have a similar ability to supply a large amount of current combined with nearly double the storage capacity of NiCADs. The only disadvantage, besides the small cost premium, is that they have a high self discharge rate. They will loose their charge just sitting around over a few weeks, while NiCADs and rechargeable alkaline will retain much more of their charge while not in use. If you are stuck without batteries, try to find disposable Lithium AA’s, since they have a tremendous ability to deliver high current, combined with light weight and very long shelf life.
If you want to really get into rechargeable batteries, check out this site:
http://www.buchmann.ca/faq.asp
The site is put together by a company that makes battery charger/conditioners.
The good thing about NiMH is that you can use them for years. Apparently, Li-Ion batteries only last about 2 years before they degrade (no matter how well you treat them).
Judy,
Have you had any problems with PDA batteries that are over 2 years old? On several Palm bulletin boards, I have heard that Palm, Sony, and Handspring Li-Ion batteries are lasting only 2 years.
John,
The only older battery that I have had trouble with was in one of my iPAQs – it just died – possibly because it was discharged for too long.
To the best of my knowledge, all of the others have held up very well (I have sold many of my older PDAs). My Palm IIIc now belongs to a friend, and it is going strong – and it is well over 2 years old.
In any case, this is what makes companies like Pocket PC Techs even more valuable.
Judie :0)
it appears this charger only has two circuits, i.e., you can only charger batteries in pairs. you should put that down as a negative, judie. a lot of the newer chargers have up to four separate circuits that allow you to charge 1, 2, 3, or 4 batteries at a time. here is a good source for nimh batteries and chargers:
http://www.thomas-distributing.com/nimh_battery_chargers.htm
-10bt
I own a Maha C-204F which looks to be the same as this charger (although it does not make sounds) and it only has two charging circuits so you must charge in pairs. Moreover, it warns against charging two batteries that do not have similar levels of charge, so I do not think that rotating batteries to deal with odd numbers is a good idea.
Unfortunately, with a two-circuit charger you need to own a few extra batteries and wait until you have similarly discharged pairs and charge them together. This is what I do with the batteries I use with my Nomad II MP3 player that only uses a single battery. If you really need to charge odd numbers of batteries the Maha C-410-FS referenced in Carguy’s first post seems like the way to go, although digital-imaging.com has considered it and kept its original recommendation of the Maha C-204F as the best charger available because of its ability to give a full charge to the batteries on each charge cycle.
Carguy – great post! It caused me to realize that the only NiMH batteries that I have ever used that have failed were also Nexell’s and the indication on digital-imaging.com that these batteries also failed in their tests is starting to amount to more than anecdotal evidence of problems. I have had good experience with Maha and Powerex batteries, and my wife has not complained about Kodak and GP AAA batteries (although her usage may not be at “gadgeteer levels.”
Finally, the down side to NiMH batteries seems to be that some electronic devices have a battery charge indicator that is not properly calibrated for the lower voltage of NiMH batteries (1.2V rather than 1.5 volts of alkalines) so they prematurely indicate that the batteries need to be replaced. This should not be a problem with any digital camera made in the past three years, as the manufacturers all seem to be recommending NiMH, unless they are providing Lithium-Ion rechargeables.
-w
The Maha MH-C401FS charger has 4 independent charging circuits for 4 batteries:
http://thomas-distributing.com/mhc401fs.htm
—- The charger that came with my U20 took over 8hrs to charge 2 AAA batteries while the NEXcell took less than 2hrs!
Judie: I actually wound up buying a blue U20 after admiring Julie’s on the trip, and I can definitely vouch that the NEXcell charger is wayyyyyy better than the included Sony version.
Julie: Speaking of voltage converters, both of us bought one for the trip. Mine is called the Voltage Valet and came from Packinglight.com. It came with several different plug adapters. I used it with my hair dryer and various PDA, camera chargers. —–
why did you need to use a voltage converter with the nexcell charger? i reread your nexcell review and it can be used for travel both in europe and the united states. it would appear that it should not be attached to a converter. it also appears that you used a converter for your pdas. i would also assume that your pdas are rated for 240 volt and should not require a converter. i use my sony 615 and handspring visor both in the united states, middle east and europe with no coverter,just a plug adapter.
thanks for the clarification.
bettina
bettina,
What we had with us were combination adapter/converters. I didn’t even think to just try the adpater without the converter – this was my first time anywhere that I would have to even use a converter like that, so I am sure it was overkill. Hopefully we didn’t hurt anything…
Judie :0)