The PDA of choice...

[Jessica Boucher]

I'm pulling this thread up again because sometime before the year is out I'm planning on purchasing my third PDA.

Previous to this I've owned a Palm Vx and then a Palm V: the Vx I bought refurbished from FranklinCovey, and lasted me a good 2 years before it died on me; and the V which I bought used off ebay (cheap becuase I already had the correct cradle), whose screen cracked when I fell down a flight of stairs in my sorority tower.

So, what are your suggestions for a new one? I was drooling over the Tungsten E for a while, basically because it had most of what I was looking for in a PDA: sleek...compatibility with Outlook, Word, Excel, & PPT...mp3 capabilities...speedy processor...color screen....and a great price point, especially used. But I'm willing to expand my horizons beyond the Palm universe.

No jokes about my falling (again). We all know I'm a klutz. And no wisecracks related to the other meaning for PDA, either

[Jon K.]

Originally Posted by Jessica Boucher

I'm pulling this thread up again because sometime before the year is out I'm planning on purchasing my third PDA.

Previous to this I've owned a Palm Vx and then a Palm V: the Vx I bought refurbished from FranklinCovey, and lasted me a good 2 years before it died on me; and the V which I bought used off ebay (cheap becuase I already had the correct cradle), whose screen cracked when I fell down a flight of stairs in my sorority tower.

So, what are your suggestions for a new one? I was drooling over the Tungsten E for a while, basically because it had most of what I was looking for in a PDA: sleek...compatibility with Outlook, Word, Excel, & PPT...mp3 capabilities...speedy processor...color screen....and a great price point, especially used. But I'm willing to expand my horizons beyond the Palm universe.

No jokes about my falling (again). We all know I'm a klutz. And no wisecracks related to the other meaning for PDA, either

If you are looking for compatiblity with word and other windows products look into a Pocket PC. I know numerous companies such as Dell and HP use them. Like I said I have a HP iPAQ 1910(no longer made, but new versions available) and I love it. You can buy Secure Digital cards pretty cheap so you can practically triple the memory you had for like another $30. You can also get replacement/spare batteries, which is nice if you are using it for listening to music via the PPC version of Windows Media Player. So if that helped at all go check out the HP website.

[Scooter]

The HP Ipaq 4155 is the way to go. I just got one, and it is awesome. It's small size hides it's powerful processor, and with integrated bluetooth and wifi, how can you go wrong?

-Bill

[seanwitte]

I have an IPaq 4350, the one with the integrated thumb keyboard. It has 802.11 and bluetooth wireless and an SD card expansion slot. I picked up a 512 MB card on sale so I carry around a lot of stuff on it. I have big thumbs but can type pretty fast, much faster than I ever was with graffitti. Once I'm connected to my home 803.11 network I can copy files between shares and open a remote desktop session on another PC. The VPN client works seamlessly. It synchs very easily with the IR port on my office laptop. I'll admit that I mostly use it for surfing the internet and checking my email from the couch. I want to use it as a wireless packet relay to interface a PC with the mini IFI controller, but thats a ways off. Any of the new PPCs are pretty nice, just depends on the form factor and brand you like.

[rswsmay]

I recently bought a pocketpc to replace my 3 year old aging PDA. I decided to go back to the drawing board and make an unbiased (as much as possible) evaluation and buying decision on what type and model I should invest in. Palm OS vs PPC 2003. Both have their pros and cons. Since I am not a HUGE Microsoft fan I was leaning more towards the Palm OS and probably either the Tungsten T3 or one of the Sony Clie' models. However to get all the functionality I was interested in with a Palm OS model I found myself pricing one out over the $400 mark.

Then Dell came out with the Axim X30 model line which seemed to have almost everything that I was looking for. 64 megs memory, built in bluetooth and WiFI, decent screen, fast processor 624Mhz, and a price to beat at $314 with their online discount.

Needless to say I am now a proud PocketPC user and haven't had any problems in my first 2 weeks of ownership. For me, the price and comparable functionality/features was the deciding factor. PocketPC OS is not quite there with ease of use as the Palm OS, but they are closing the gap.