PDAs

[chrisvenus]

Another of my speculative purchase type posts where I ask for opinions on what I should buy.

This time we're on PDAs. I know very little about the PDA market at all. I know that you get these neat little computer things that you can slip into your pocket and that you can run lots of cool stuff on (though probably not everything you want).

Requirements are very loose (ie I'm happy for you to tell me they are wrong) but here they are:

Windows based - I'm a windows person so I figure that being able to load up my word docs and anything else would be good. Also I'm more used to the UI, etc. etc. etc.
Bluetooth - I have bluetooth phone and bluetooth laptop and bluetooth handsfree kit and so it makes sense to me to get a bluetoothy PDA so I can do mobile internet things on it.
Wireless - Wireless for when I'm in a wireless type place seems sensible. No idea abotu what they are capable of along these lines (ie B or G, what levels of security they do, etc.)
Relatively sturdy - the theory is that it will sit in my pocket, probably with keys, phone, wallet, etc. so not being fragile is a good thing.

I'm really not sure what else. Mp3 playing capability possibly. My current phone is the only portable mp3 thing I have so if a PDA did it then it would save me from having to try to find another phone that did it (or buying a proper mp3 thing though I am considering that too).


So any reccomendations for features that I should have or for specific models that are good?

Comments

[wimble.livejournal.com]

I had a palm 3 about 5 years ago. It was severely underused, and, although I've still got it, it's been collecting dust for quite some time.

I concluded that it wasn't a viable tool in its own right, but was portable adjunct to a PC. Keep all the documents on a PC, download them to the pilot if you need them to be portable, and upload them again when they've been altered. If I'm in the vicinity of a PC, use that instead.

Note, for example, that there are usually 2 or 3 laptops, plus the mini, lying around at Templars, and these are grabbed by members of the crowd of people there whenever they want to check the internet. In my case, of course, I just SSH back to home, so I need no portable capacity at all, just connectivity.

Of course, technology will have moved on in the intervening times, so the PDA becomes more useful. I know metame enjoys playing go on his PDA ;-)

I'd suggest a memory card slot would be of use. Or possibly a USB connection so the PDA becomes a removable hard-drive.

[metame.livejournal.com]

I *love* my iPaq (HP4130 with keyboard) and pocket PC 2003 (a mile better than the old Wince days).

I got a decent case for it - somewhat like this and that means it's survived a good long time now and a few drops, bumps etc.

I find the wireless internet great - and with a VGA screen webpages are very viewable - I use it for LJ quite happily, googling, gmail, connecting to my work's exchange server webmail, patchwork universe, and most other sites.

I haven't actually bothered using the built in bluetooth at all - and suspect may need to install that part of the software if I ever want to....

A memory card slot is (almost) essential - I find it a great way to get photos off my camera, but most importantly to get large amounts of content onto my iPaq AND get more program space - I can run programs from an SD card which means you can have much more 'installed' on it than you might expect.

I play a certain amount of games - Scrabble (dictionary on the storage card) and Go, doom (quake's also ported), racing games, and a few others.

It works well as an ebook reader - PDFs, tomeraider, etc

It's OK as an MP3 player (windows media player, headphone socket), and dictaphone. Haven't tried encoding TV type stuff but must be feasible.

It seamlessly handles pdf as well as word and excel and the like, and I often use it for meeting notes, or taking documents to meetings without lugging (and booting) the laptop.

it leaves open programs when you close them (in a sensible way) so there's virtually no time between turning it on and working/playing

The keyboard and D-pad are good and usable but annoyingly many games won't know it's there - so doom for example has a keyboard taking up a 1/4 of the display. So that might not be wirthwhile if you don;t expect to be typing much on it.

[chrisvenus]

Where did you buy it from? I don't even know what shops are good to look in for this kind of thing...

Does the wireless deal intelligently with turning up to different places with different connection setting and automatically knowing where it is (laptops do so I assume the answer is yes).

Does pocket windows run pretty much most stuff that grown up windows does? I'm thinking things like firefox, thunderbird, etc.

[metame.livejournal.com]

The wireless is good - it has a mac address, understands WEP and suchlike. If I turn it on in a place that knows me (or has an unsecured point) it picks it up pretty quickly - 30 secs or so usually.

Pocket PC 2003 like wot I have is not really pocket Windows it is just also made by MS - don't expect to have the ability to just use windows programs, everything has to be ported across to it (and I've no idea how hard that is). I guess the way the chip works is sufficiently different that it isn't trivial. So while MS has ported most things they produce, 3rd party stuff is likely not to have bothered...

i got it online. Can't remember where from. Wanting to have a keyboard meant my choice wasn't too tricky.

in Ox, Rymans may have some, dixons and other home electronics places do too

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I can give no constructive advice here, but I feel I must just add: SHIIIIIIIIIIIIINY. *covets*

[chrisvenus]

I haven't got one yet! :)

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

I can covet it in potentia...

[wimble.livejournal.com]

VIRTUAAAAAAAAAAAAL!

[evath.livejournal.com]

If I remember correct you have a nokia and you use sunbird?

From my experience of a PDA I found it to be shiny tech but not completely practice since I got fed up of another thing to carry round. Presumably you want it to sync with your calendar, AFAIK most PDAs now sync with Outlook or there own little app. I found with a laptop sync via USB a pain as I never had the cable so definitely get something with bluetooth (syncing via WiFi may also work but probably more of a hassle).

My recommendation is first see if you can use this sort of thing with Sunbird or ask yourself would Outlook be fine? Then try getting the software for your nokia and use that as a calendar for a while. The reason I recommend this is since I got my SE K700i, I've found it works really well as a calendar, and don't find adding an appointments that much slower than using the input method on most PDAs. As for being sturdy they phone are also generally better than PDAs IMHO. Though the hard cases for PDAs seem all to be good.

The desire for Wifi seems quite sensible, but I found it not as useful as I hoped, whenever I went somewhere with free Wifi, I was somewhere with a laptop or terminal of some sort with a far better screen. Most Wifi hotspots these days are not free so :( If you really want web on the go you probably will just need to dail-up from the PDA over the phone. Which only really gains you a bigger screen over the newer phones (which okay you don't have but WAP does all I want).

For being windows based, I'm not sure if it that useful. I have used windows PDAs and found they didn't feel anything like windows and seemed not to be that different from a Palm (just slightly less nice). As for loading word etc, I think palms can this too.

So my recommendation is to try getting your phone to sync with your PC first. If nothing else it will give you another place to look up your calendar when you phone goes flat (I use my iPod and Phone). See if you use that. If you want to then go on and get a PDA you can get some Palms for as little as 40GBP, but they would have no bluetooth etc. What you're talking about is a few hundred. (Can you get it without VAT?)

[thefon.livejournal.com]

I just picked up a "Vodafone 1640" phone ( = QTEK 9000 ) which you can get subsidised on most networks .. might be an option for you. Similar to metame's shiny IPAQ, but it's also a 3G UMTS phone, Pocket PC 2005. Bit of a brick, but think of it as a mini-laptop. Time will tell, how well the battery life holds up.

Adrian