Everyone else has backlighting, but under normal lighting conditions our 200LX's have a clearer screen with better contrast. But what about at night?

Thaddeus Computing has the answer, the wonderful FlexLight Reading Light they sell works great! It clips onto the side of the screen, has a flexible 7 inch neck so you can adjust the light as you desire, it's adjustable from a 'spotlight' to a floodlight, the latter works best for the Palmtop. It looks like Mitch has stopped selling the lights, but Thaddeus Computing now sells them on their Flexlight Reading Light page (at 3 times the price Mitch did :(, wow..)

But, unfortunately for me, my bulb blew after 3 or 4 hours of use.. I couldn't believe it! So I pulled out the Radio Shack catalog and found out that the bulb is only rated for 5 hours! Wow. So I look at the next bulb and it is rated for 500 hours. Well, I really wanted to be able to use the light that night, so I purchased both the short-lived bulbs and ordered the longer life bulbs through Radio Shack Unlimited, Radio Shack's mail-order division. The bulbs I purchased worked, but weren't very bright, and to be 'pre focused' they were pretty out of focus. Then the longer life bulbs came in the mail about a week later, and man, they are great. They're just as bright, if not brighter than the original Palmtop Light bulb, should run for 500 hours, came three to a package (advertised as 2 to a package, may have been a mistake :) and only cost $2.37 with shipping for me.

Don't get the wrong impression, get the Palmtop Light, it's the perfect solution. Just go to your local Radio Shack and order the long life bulb, look for it in the catalog, and the order number is RSU 11673423.

Perhaps you're wondering how long the batteries will last? My Radio Shack NiCD 180mA AAA batteries lasted 50 minutes with the original bulb, thus drawing around 200mA. I'm now using Radio Shack's NiMH 550mA AAA batteries, and so far I haven't used it long enough to drain the batteries.. :) Using my super-technical current measuring device (a thin piece of plastic with metal on each side with a current meter across the metal strips) I've measured the current of the long life bulb to be 178mA, thus it should last over three hours on the 550mA NiMH batteries. Not bad at all.. :)