Palm PDA Roundup

Melvin writes "Hardware Extreme has a roundup featuring some of the top PalmOS based PDAs in the market (and a few coming out in the 2nd and 3rd Quarter). Being a geek's gadget, :) I would recommend you guys to check out this roundup if you are planning to get a new Palm PDA."

Comments

Review? Round-up? Where?

[tghost]

Apparently, nowadays printing the back of the box where the specs are gleefully bullet pointed counts as a review.

i705?

[lpret]

What the hell is the i705 doing on that list?
I treat it much lower than the Palm Vx which is the epitome of a sexy PDA. The i705 is perhaps the worst PDA ever put out by Palm in that it does nothing except extend the life of Palm.net or whatever they called it. Even the Palm VIIx was more groundbreaking than the i705.

I do have to say that after moving from Palm to Pocket PC, the thing I miss the most is a decent battery life. My Toshiba e740 gets about 3 hours, while my Vx got about 2 weeks.

Re:Palm is a sinking ship

[waytoomuchcoffee]

I own both a Handera (Palm OS) and an IPAQ 1910. I do not have to reset the Ipaq 5x a day. (I did have to reset the Handera, however, every week or so, but that was OS4).

My company made a business decision on what to upgrade to. We really wanted to keep with the Palm OS, but there was no lightweight, OS 5, full screen versions out there. The Clie's are NOT made for business and are bricks, while the Palm T|T is not full screen (and is expensive).

We settled on the 1910 because of the form factor and very low weight (it's smaller than a Palm V). This is important, as if people can't stick it in their pocket they will not use them as often. They are also cheap; $300 retail, much less than the competing OS 5 models (with our business discount we got them for $264 each). Contrary to what I always thought when I used my Palm, Palms are NOT better at being an electronic organizer for business professionals. There are lots of little tricks you can do with the PPC that you can't do with a Palm -- if you move the left/right directional buttons in the Contact list for example, you can switch between different phone/fax numbers without going into the record itself. Pretty neat, and elegant.

It's a shame because I really loved my full-screen Handera. It's incredibly ironic that Palm users, after years of complaining that PPCs were heavy and were not "simplistic", are now buying up multimedia bricks like the Clies.

Zire is the only one that make sense

[g4dget]

You can get the Palm Zire for about $80-$100 at your local electronics store. It's great for the things that PalmOS is traditionally good at: calendaring, TODO lists, and simple note taking. I think it's the only Palm that makes any sense.

The high-end Palms with high-end features (MP3, multitasking, cameras, high-resolution screens, etc.) are a horrible combination of hardware and software kludges to get PalmOS to do things that PalmOS was never designed to do. For example, many of those nifty features on the Clie have required Sony to hack their own extensions into PalmOS, and every Palm software vendor needs to accomodate those. And because each vendor hacks PalmOS to their liking, Palm can't even ship a single upgrade from PalmOS 5 to PalmOS 6--you will be able to upgrade your Sony only if Sony spends the time and money to create their own upgrade.

Unfortunately, the Linux PDAs aren't doing much better either. The Zaurus (I own one) is a brick. Several other Linux handheld startups went belly-up. And handhelds.org is fighting a constant battle to reverse engineer handhelds in order to run Linux on them--even handhelds that are developed within Compaq/HP, the company hosting handhelds.org. However, Motorola's use of Linux on their cell phones may give Linux on PDAs a new life.

I hate to say it, but if you are using Windows on your desktop and if you are looking for a high-end handheld, a PocketPC machine probably makes more sense. Even something like the iPaq h1910 ($299) runs rings around more expensive Palm models and is lighter to boot. The big problem with PocketPC is that it is completely proprietary: it pretty much only talks to Windows desktops and the primary development platform for it is Microsoft proprietary. But, then, it isn't clear to me why you would want a high-end handheld to begin with.

Overall, I'd just stick with the Palm Zire, and for the other features (MP3 player, GPS, camera, games, etc.) get separate, dedicated devices.

Re:Palm is a sinking ship

[UnixRevolution]

I am forced to disagree. Palm's machines, either by OS or by the system itself, are little more than the cheap $30 databanks you see in the stationary section of a store compared to a modern pocket PC. Every time someone refers to my Zaurus SL-5500 as a "Palm Pilot" i cringe and tell them to renounce their blasphemy. The Zaurus's organizer's functions are excellent, and i cannot imagine them being any better. The input ease from the slide-away KB or onscreen KB is excellent, and i have no complaints. It's powerful, and flexible. I could code and compile C programs, write HTML pages, or do any number of things on it if i wanted to. I could even edit images! It's got internal storage to spare, and like Palm or Handspring, doesn't need sync software or proprietary memory to work. (indeed, i've had it for months and have never synched it with another system...i just transfer things via CF or the wireless eth card.) It may have been $400, but it's well worth it. It's a real computer, just like my compaq laptop, my dual Athlon 2100+ workstation, my suns, apples, SGI, and my other x86's. It runs real linux! This also helps it cope with the instability problem the previous author was talking about. I've never had to reset my zaurus, EVER. It's a delight, and superior in every way to any palm. Even its organizer functions are awesome, especially considering i never have to worry about synching it, and i can connect to the web with full color and view real web pages, chat on IRC, and even download files with Qtella. Zaurus, and other PocketPC's, particularly the Linux ones, are the best handhelds out there. Better than WinCE Ipaq/Journada/Axiom/Toshiba systems, better than Palm and Clie, just plain better. AND they fit nicely in your pocket, backpack, briefcase, or laptop tote.

It runs Linux, so it must be good...

[TheRaven64]

Newsflash: Linux is not the perfect solution for every problem.
I want a PDA that will play oggs, take notes / jotted drawings, connect to an 802.11b network, or GPRS when that isn't availible and un a jabber client. Oh, and I want it to fit into a shirt pocket. If it runs Linux, fine. If it runs ObscureOS(tm) then that's fine as well. Hell, I'd even be happy with it running Wince if it did what I want it to...
The original Palm prototype was a block of wood, and the only constraint that the design team was given was that their design should be no bigger than the block of wood. If I'm going to cary this thing around with me all day, I want it to be easy to carry. Linux is great in a server, but you simply do not need a full-featured, server-class OS in a PDA. Someone I know recently bought a Wince machine. It has a 400MHz CPU. It feels about as fast as a 33MHz dragonball based Palm (although the latter can't handle ogg playback).
A PDA is not a desktop computer, and should not be treated as such.

Re:Sharp Zaurus

[Hanno]

I own a PalmOS PDA and a Zaurus.

Yes, I'm a geek and I love techno toys. But I beg to differ: The Zaurus is not a good PDA.

In addition to my earlier rant:

My Palm PDA runs on one set of rechargeable batteries for two or three weeks. My Zaurus runs two or three days. Even if I'm away and can't recharge the Palm's batteries, I can get standard AAA batteries anywhere. The Zaurus battery is too small and it's a proprietary format, so I always have to bring the AC adapter.

Granted, there are Palm PDAs with proprietary batteries, as well. But I see the limited battery lifetime and the price tag of replacement batteries as two of the major minuses of the Zaurus.

I can't imagine using PalmOS with graffitti and all that bs

Yes, you obviously can't since you never did. The Palm's applications do their job and that's it - and that's all I want from a PDA.

Graffiti is a blessing. It works and I learned it within minutes, while the Zaurus' joke of a handwriting recognition software still doesn't recognize my handwriting, despite using about two hours of training on it, after which I gave up.

You're right, though, the Zaurus keyboard is great. But I would love to see Graffiti or something similar on it. Yes, you can teach the Zaurus different strokes and there is a software package with the Graffiti strokes, but it just plain and simply doesn't work as good as the PalmOS PDAs.

Considering the fact that the Zaurus CPU is more powerful than the one used in the older Palms, I'm sure that better recognition could be possible. But there just isn't anything in it now.

yes the Zaurus runs real Linux. Yes, Debian [debian.org] has been ported. Yes, a better pda environment [openzaurus.org] than sharp's is under development.

The Zaurus' Linux environment is neat, but in daily use, the PalmOS standard software is way more productive for me. The Qtopia apps aren't as well thought out. I personally don't mind, but the Palm PDAs are easy to understand and easy to use for everyone (including my Mom), while the Zaurus is a techno toy that also includes a mediocre calendar and addressbook software.

It's nice to write software for the Zaurus, though, much nicer than for PalmOS, since there are so many alternatives to choose from in the Linux world. Yet it's kind of sad that the Linux sync support of the Zaurus is so bad and kernel driver needed for the desktop side still crashes the PC every now and then.

Yes, having a wifi CF card and a 256mb SD card is the high life.

If you can afford them and can live with the limited battery lifetime of your PDA as a consequence.

Yes you can connect that that serial terminal or k/b up.

Show me a decent serial keyboard that's not sold for a ridiculously high price tag. Also, the cable needed to connect a serial keyboard is sold at 40$ and above.

So add the Zaurus, a CF wifi card, a 256 mb SD card, a serial keyboard and serial cable (or, alternatively, an IR keyboard) and you basically get an overpriced Microlaptop, but not a PDA.

I use the Palm for my daily calendar and address book. I use the Zaurus as a (great) techno toy and I sometimes wonder if I should have saved the money I spent on it.