At first glance, the catchily-named A10JQ would seem to be the ultimate mobile writer’s tool from the past.  In the days when 5″ smartphones were hideously expensive and tablets hadn’t yet become mainstream, the humble little A10JQ came onto the market.

The Mobile Internet Device A10JQ

Originally called the “Mobile Internet Device”, it was indeed mobile, and a device, and it could access the internet, but it was capable of more than that.

In aesthetics, it shared many similarities with car sat-navs of the time, but this device has no GPS.  It has WiFi, but that’s all.  It has an SD card slot, and a mini-USB (remember those before micro-USB became all the rage?) and a handy retractable stylus.

Running Windows CE 5.0, it was also capable of running our old favourite Softmaker Office 2008 (CE version).  My version is a trial version that’s long since expired, but that hardly matters in this instance because enterprising individuals enabled the use of “MioPocket” – a suite of software designed to enhance similar-spec’d sat-navs – to run on this device.  With all of the additional software, the MID becomes a small hub of possibilities, including document editing/creation as shown in the photo.

Sadly, what lets the device down is the hardware.  Although the screen may be a nice size, it lacks resolution.  The resistive touchscreen is far from being precise, even with the stylus.  And the onscreen keyboard feels like a leftover from smaller PDA devices.

MID with keyboard

Fortunately, this is where that mini-USB port comes in handy.  Any regular USB keyboard could be connected to the device (the photo here shows a fold-up Targus USB keyboard with suitable plug adapters).  This helps to make the MID a viable writing platform.

The battery could last up to two hours but, with the large backlit screen and WiFi turned on, you’d want to keep your mains adapter handy.  It required 5V/2A to charge, which made it difficult to charge via the mini-USB port (impossible if that keyboard is plugged in), and finding a suitable external battery isn’t so easy.

Thanks largely to MioPocket, the MID could also double-up as a media device – playing videos and music, together with an assortment of games – as if we writers need more ways to procrastinate.

The MID often comes across as the underdog.  It shouldn’t do all that it does, and it doesn’t do all of that as well as it should, but it still hangs in there as a veritable digital Swiss Army knife.