Which PDA?

I know nothing about Palm, but I like my Pocket PC.

If you want a PDA phone, the I-mate PDA 2K a-likes (XDAIII, MDAIII, and QTek: all based on the same hardware) look to be the current front runners. The HP h6340 is pretty, but they've gone for a 200MHz processor to extend battery life. That's a shame because I can't feel the limitations of my 400Mhz processor compared to when I overclock it. You could wait for the Motorola MPx, but it keeps getting delayed, and the prototypes have been very sketchy.

If you want a straight PDA, the questions to ask are do you want WiFi built in (the answer to this question should be yes), and do you want a VGA screen?

If you don't want wifi or VGA, the HP h2210 is good value and has a built in universal remote. I have one, and tho' I regret not getting a wifi model (I've got a socket sdio wifi card), it is great in every other respect. The equivalent Dells look just as good, but do without the universal remote.

If you want wifi, but not VGA, the X30 624 or h4150 have both received very favourable reviews. The Dell is good value, but a bit of a brick. The 4150 is slinky, but not as quick.

If you want VGA, the Toshiba e805 is on the market, but every PDA forum is full of anti-toshiba hate because of the poor support. It might be worth waiting for the hx7400, or the Asus /Loox equivalents.

If you don't want to wait, the h4150 or the thumboard equivalent would be very safe bets.

Brighthand or Infosyncworld are very good for reviews. If you do go for a PPC, I have a whole load of great freeware I can bung your way. Oh, and remember to budget for a big memory card if you want to watch movies or store alot of music on it.

My today screen

errr... I don't know what wifi is, apart from her indoors.

Seriously though, I am out of my depth here. What is the point of internet connectivity on a PDA if I have to be sat next to my home/office computer to use it?

[This message was edited by Rockingdoc on Tue 14 September 2004 at 14:06.]

Wireless LAN - so you can hook up to the interweb without physically hooking up. Good at home if you have a wireless network, but better when you are on the move and come into a hotspot.

Pretty much my whole campus is a hotzone, and I never seem to be far from an open network in Brighton.

Aha! It so happens I do have a wireless network at home to stop my babies filling up my PC with their kazza rubbish.

Who pays for the hot-spot use?

Some you pay for, some are free. I've used pay as you go hotspots on occasion, but I hook up for free to people who haven't switched on WEP or MAC filtering or go to establishments that provide free access whenever possible. For instance, in Brighton there are two free hotspots on the beach, and at least a couple of pubs that provide free access.

It requires no skill to hook up for free if a connection is not secured. On my iPAQ, as soon as I activate wifi, if a connection is available a pop-up asks me if I want to connect. God bless vaguely awkward router interfaces for switching on WEP .

Doc,

Even though the Windows platform has made great strides in the medical application department, Palm is still the most popular format among the medical crowd for that very reason. There are so many medical apps, many of them free. I would be happy to share my experiences and software.

Mekon clearly knows more about the Windows PDAs than I do so I'll concentrate on the Palm world. The Palm T3 is a great unit with it's expanding screen. Sony also has some great units but I'm a Palm man myself. The only downfall of the T3 is that it doesn't have wifi built-in: instead it has bluetooth. Between Mekon and I, we're probably hitting you with the same amount of PDA jargon that an excited medical student would dump on a layperson! With bluetooth, you can also have wireless internet but it requires a bluetooth dongle (basically a sending unit) which is relatively inexpensive. There is an SD card that will allow the T3 to use wifi but it is a bit expensive. So on hardware alone, the Windows units might have the advantage.

Both Palm and Windows PDAs will sync with Outlook and allow you to exchange data with other Microsoft apps. You can do some research online as to the real-world experiences as I've heard conflicting stories. Many years ago I tried syncing my Palm PDA with Outlook and it worked fine but I now prefer Palm's PIM.

While I'm typing this dissertation, let me add that I would stay away from the phone/PDA combo because it's a compromise. You'll lose out on some of the expandability options and extra "cool" features, especially with the PDA. Since you are already comfortable with small phones, I doubt you would be happy with the size of the combos.

Hope that helps a bit more, but I fear you will probably have more questions than answers after reading my post

Not sure what your looking to do, but if you are looking at integrating simple PDA functions with a phone the new Orange SPV C500 looks pretty good. Talking to someone the other day who has just got one of these, he said it was a big improvement over the old SPVs.

David

I'd carefully consider whether Excel and/or Word are really needed on the go and if not, wait for the RIM phone (which should be able to view Excel and Word attachments, but not edit them?). RIM's the real deal; everything else is foofy:

PS- Mekon, PDAs are so 2001.

Blimey it's a minefield.
Perhaps I should stick with me diary and birthday-book.

Never having wanted one or ever owned one they now have warning notes for the under 16's. Fags are legal too innit.

Graham George Of Cigaretteseven

From the amount of time you spend here, I wouldn't imagine that you have many appointments to keep track of (or friends' phone numbers for that matter).

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Perhaps I should stick with me diary and birthday-book.

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Well, those solutions won't leave you stranded without access to info, just 'cos the batteries went flat, or you dropped it on something hard from a great height (don't ask!).

I use an old Palm and love it, as the ability to set audible reminders is the big advantage over paper. In addition I carry a lot of other engineering applications on it that save me hours of work every week, which is a BIG bonus.

I wouldn't combine with a phone though, for one simple reason - battery life.

The convenience of a single unit is nice, but after a long 'phone call and then finding yourself without access to data until the unit is charged would, I suspect, be a potential problem.

I quite fancied a Handspring Palm / phone, but the battery life put me off, my old mono Palm IIIx lasts a month on two AAA's!

It is though, as you say, a minefield.

Andy.

Rockingdoc,

Most the suggests seem to be feature rich but brick like in proportion. I havea old Sony Clie T425 which I think is still the thinnest PDA that I have come accross (10mm) but is hideously out of date (monochrome screen) but works very well and synchs with outlook fine. You can also get some very useful software for palms, lots free, some you have to buy.

However, the recent models are getting more and more feature bound but larger and larger, especially the pocket PC's (save a few of the HP's).

In terms of phones/PDA the Palm/Windows machines tend to be PDA's with phones and are rather bulky, the Sony Ericsson P900 is more phone like in size but obviously has a smaller screen. Battery life doesn't seem to be great on any of these devices but if you are travelling for more then a couple of days you will need the whole host of chargers anyway, and I know for the Sony Ericcsn you can get USB charging cables so saves space if you need a laptop anyway.

I am just in the process of persuading my company to replace my hideous old motorola with a P900 and tehn I can retire my Palm, as long as I can get the software I need.

Matthew

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Originally posted by Rockingdoc:
From the amount of time you spend here, I wouldn't imagine that you have many appointments to keep track of (or friends' phone numbers for that matter).

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Quite right Sir, that was Kent wasn't it ? though there are many of us !

quote:

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Originally posted by Ludwig:
PS- Mekon, PDAs are _so_ 2001.

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Ramp up the jawn!

Just another thought; a PDA is only of any use if you carry it with you, always. If you don't it becomes and expensive toy.

This will have a big impact on the type you choose, I suspect.

Paper notepads are small, light and fit in a top pocket, many PDA's are the complete opposite

Andy.

Ever since I lost my Palm m515 (well, someone nicked it ) I've been looking into a new PDA. Eventually I realised a good old fashioned filofax worked better

-- woody

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Originally posted by Mekon:
Ramp up the jawn!

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Come again?

and that's where I came in; which is the smallest and lightest PDA that will do the job?

If you want a pocket pc, the h1940 if you don't want wifi, the h4155 if you do. As far as I know, the h4155 suffers no size penalty for its performance and connectivity advantage.

thank you master mekon, and are these guys whose ads you're using the ones I should do my deal with?

I like them, and have bought lots from them. Their sales staff really knew their stuff when I was setting up my wireless network. However, when I bought my PDA, Amazon were about £15 cheaper and did free delivery.

BTW, if you were to get one, other than a memory card, the two must-have accessories are a retractable sync and charge cable and a screen protector kit. The former lets you sync and charge off a USB port without a cradle, and the latter is a hardwearing removeable plastic covering from the screen. the WriteSHIELD one is the one to get; it improves the screen whereas the cheap ones are just annoying. Mine is a year or so old, and hasn't needed replacing.

[This message was edited by Mekon on Fri 17 September 2004 at 11:22.]

How's the real battery life on the iPaq?

This review implied it wouldn't last a day!

"The other disappointment is battery life. Having turned both wireless features off and set the screen to be always on and at half its brightness, we looped MP3s continuously. After just two hours and 46 minutes a 'battery low' warning was given, and after three hours and 40 minutes the device stopped completely.

If you expect to be a big user of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi you may experience even shorter battery life. The battery is removable and so you could invest in a spare, but that's less convenient than having a longer life cell as standard."

I guess it's a bit like comparing apples and oranges, since my Palm is mono, can't play mp3's or do wireless, but I think one needs to carefully consider exactly what you need it for. The eye candy costs big time in practicality.

Andy.