PDA replacement time, opinions solicited

[Blackhat00]

So my Handspring Visor crashed for the first time the other day after several years of owning it (I bought it on their website for $300, a whopping 8M of memory or was it 16M? and a black and white screen, that should date it for you a bit). It's back to running okay again but I'm thinking it's time to get a replacement.


I think I'd like to stick with Palm OS. The thought of using Windows in a palm top just... just.... it's like... well... I expect my PDA to be utterly reliable when I need it. Pisses me off when my desktop crashes, to crash in the middle of nowhere needing to look up a phone number or some such thing just would send me flying through the roof.

I've been looking at the Zire73 or whatever the latest model number is and the Tungsten E.

I'm somewhat torn. I think the gadgetry is neat on the Zire but I don't really need it and the Tungsten appeals to that Scottish practical side of me, especially the Scottish side of me.

I'm not particular thrilled with the overall appearance of both. What happend to professional looking business machines? Silver and or blue? Gee, let's wear T-shirts with peace symbols on them to the corporate boardroom also.. blech.

So any thoughts anyone has on PDA's in general and what would make a good replacement would be highly appreciated. If you have good experiences with Window's PDA's let me know. I appreciate your help.

[idx]

No experience with windows PDA's here, but I have the same reservation. While they look slick I don't have any confidence in them.

I currently use a Palm Tungsten C and love it. One of the things I was most impressed with (coming from a palm Vx) is the speed. Screen to screen flies and opening word docs/pdf's is very fast as well. (not sure what the performance differences are between the Z2 and E [312pxa vs 126TI omap])

The keyboard and wifi are also great features. (sometimes I browse this forum from the sofa with it)

I agree that the blue doesn't exactly look professional and the Z2 seems to be more "multimedia"-related vs econo business. Personally I'd lean towards the Tungsten E if I didn't already go with the C. I really don't have any use for the camera.



-r

[firstadopter]

You should consider the Treo 600, it really has great synergy of PDA + phone. You can surf the web, check email, do AOL instant messenging, and still use all the Palm PDA functionality.

If you buy it with rebate and 1 yr Sprint service you can get it for about $200.

The downside is it's more bulkly than typical cellphone and the Treo 650 Ace is out in a couple months.

http://www.firstadopter.com/fa/archives/000002.html

Check out this article above I wrote on stuff you can do with the Treo.

[TheAngryIntern]

i bought a Toshiba Genio e550 about 2 years ago or so. It had windows 2002 for pocketPC or whatever they call it. I've never had a problem with it. I used it a lot when i was still on my ship. books weren't allowed in the nuclear engine room, PDA's were, so i had a crap ton of ebooks on mine. Best part was, none of the higher ups would say anything, even when it was completely OBVIOUS that i was reading a book on it, cuz they all had PDA's too, and they wanted to play with theirs while on watch!! (5 hrs can get pretty boring when nothing is going on!!) Now that i'm not on a ship anymore, i don't have much use for it, but i still use it once in a while. I got the pocketpc mainly since it had the biggest screen out of all the ones i looked at. that was pretty important to me, since it's primary purpose was for reading. So, just to give an opinion from teh other side of the house. I've had no problems with mine. My mom has an old Handspring, probably circa same as your old Palm, and she still uses it regularly and it's running like a champ for her.

[firstadopter]

Another downside of the current Treo 600 is the low resolution screen, hopefully this will be upgraded with the Treo 650 Ace.

[Blackhat00]

I looked at the Treo and a friend of mine is working on QA for Treo at one of the wireless companies. It's nice and all but I am one of those wierd fools that actually got very good at Graffitti though I hear there's a new version out that is going to have an all new learning curve going on. My main beef against the Treo is that I just don't need a phone in the middle of all that jazz.

Some great comments so far guys, appreciate the feedback. It's helping me narrow down what I want in a PDA if naught else:

- Color screen
- Applications (not a problem on either one really)
- professional looking, I use mine in meetings all the time still.

Probably more that's just the immediate things that come to mind.

[firstadopter]

I would wait couple months and buy the latest Palm PDA that replaces the Tungsten E.

Palm traditionally does a 6 month upgrade cycle, so new ones should come out before Christmas. And if you wait then, you might be able to pick up an old version for much cheaper too.

I too like Palm OS better, cuz it's small tighter and faster. Unless you want to do heavy duty video work and play lots of heavy multimedia games, Palm is the way to go.

You might even take a gander at the Tapwave Zodiac, if you want more gaming. Zodiac has a great screen for normal PDA apps too.

[firstadopter]

Amazon has the Palm Tungsten E slim color 32MB 320x320 PDA on sale for $194.99 - $25 rebate = $169.99 shipped free.

$25 rebate Exp 9/12/04

[Blackhat00]

*cry* I'm too gadgety for my own good. I know the E is probably the more suitable Palm but I keep thinking it would be kind of cool to have the cheapie camera in the Zire 72. I'm half tempted to try a WIndows based PDA but well, it's Microsoft and that would be fundamentally wrong. *sigh* I hate tech decisions. Maybe I should just get a 500 video card instead for my beautiful monitor and then I won't have enough money left over to worry about a PDA. ;)

[firstadopter]

I would wait for the next generation of PDAs with at least 1 megapixel cameras, if you want the camera feature.

If the Zire camera is anything like the camera on my Treo, it's pretty much useless.

[Blackhat00]

The Zire 72 has a 1.2 Megapixel camera built in. I'm guessing that PalmOne tried to get the jump on peeps for the next gen PDA with the Zire 72. All the reviews are saying that the competitions comparitive hardware is coming soon.