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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."
-AD
Slashdot readers like myself may not like Palm PDA's because they don't cram a whole lot of whiz-bang features into the PDA's, they aren't laptop replacements in your hand, but that's NOT what Palm is gunning for. They're electronic organizers made for business professionals, and at this they excel. They are better at this job than PocketPCs. They are simple, elegant and trustworthy. You normally do not have to reset a Palm handheld 5 times a day like you do with a PocketPC unless something is horribly wrong with it or an application you have on it was coded by a 3 year old monkey.
Palm is not a sinking ship, they just don't target you as a user.
-- iCEBaLM
Does all that, with a kickass k/b. I can't imagine using PalmOS with graffitti and all that bs.
For those that are wondering, yes the Zaurus runs real Linux. Yes, Debian has been ported. Yes, a better pda environment than sharp's is under development. Yes, having a wifi CF card and a 256mb SD card is the high life. Yes you can connect that that serial terminal or k/b up.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
My next "phone" will be either of those. /.)
The P800 uses Symbian, an OS that really looks good on paper.
Palm:
+ 320x320 screen
+ PalmOS (familarity & apps)
+ Keyboard (emailing and bitching on
+ MMS/SSD card
- Size
- Battery?
P800
+ Smaller, more phone-like
? 208x320 screen
- No keyboard
- Memory Stick
- No PalmOS (?)
- Price?
Didnt you read the last Linux Uprising article?, Linux is getting hot in the handhelds world and i belive GPE Palmtop (GPL license) will become its best UI in a few years.
Dont get stuck with an useless and outdated OS, meet the future and get a Zaurus (or wait for the IBM Linux handhelds).
Sigs are for morons... Wait a minute...
Amen to that!
I have had several Palm units: PalmPilot Pro, IIIe, VIIx and i705. When Palm.Net plan changes would have put my monthly bill over $80, I canceled the account on the spot, since wireless access wasn't worth that much every month to me.
I bought a Toshiba e335, and tried it out for about three weeks. In that time:
(1) The alarm light never worked properly,
(2) The battery indicator would jump around from time to time,
(3) ActiveSync would drop out spontaneously, sometimes during a sync operation,
(4) The Transcriber, while a great idea, was awkward when entering appointments and tasks. I used the Block Recognizer (virtual Grafitti pad) more often, simply because it was one of the few thigns that worked reliably.
The OS got in the way of the things I needed to do. Thus, I reverted back to my i705, but haven't reactivated the service (yet). Simply put, the Palm just works. Plain and simple. The lower end units weren't designed to be used regularly to edit Word docs or Excel spreadshets--use your laptop to do that. Viewing them, I can understand, but not editing or creating new docs.
Is sound and color and hi-res graphics important? To some, yes--in that case go for a Sony or one of the Palms that will do such things. I for one don't plan on making a full-color presentation using my PDA--again, that is is what the laptop is for.
All in all, it really does matter what your target customer is. For me, the PocketPC was way too buggy and clumsy. The Palm interface does what I need it to do, cleanly and simply.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
How could they leave out one of the most important devices of this coming year?
I see other unreleased Palms on there, but where is the Kyocera 7135? It's been a documented fact that Smartphone sales have been down since the announcement of it back on June 24th, 2002. USA Today had an ad in it mentioning 47,000 people on the waiting list for it(Me being one of them). It's finally available in limited markets, but I find it appaling that they could ignore the smartest smartphone of them all.
Here is an avid collection of people dedicated to this pda.
How can you ignore it?
I'll buy a separate PDA, 'cause the airlines won't let me use a PDA-phone, even though the phone in my Kyocera SmartPhone powers-off
Hell, they won't let me listen to mp3's on my ipaq until it 'is safe to use portable electronics' bullshit. Headphones - yup, a walkman is sure a problem. When I pilot a Piper Warrior, I use the bloody thing as a nav aid to time waypoints.
Got to love comities and/or profit generators... AA is going down in flames anyhow. The others are just as bad when it comes to policy, however.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
my girlfriend just bought the Clie (16MB, High-res display, b&W, Memory Stick)
and I myself received a Treo 90 for my birthday. (16 MB, lo-res, color, SD)
The Clie comes with so much useless software that my girlfriend had to delete a ton of stuff before she could install her medical reference software. She has 16 friggin MB, which should be about ten times as much needed for palm OS. She wants to get a Memory Stick, but a lot of Palm apps don't work running of the stick.
My Treo 90 is pretty neat...except that the backlight has blown out. Twice. And every time it happens, I have to wait on hold for 30 minutes. Hope it doesn't happen again!
So..I can't recommend either of these handhelds. Perhaps Dell's new offering might be a smarter choice!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
a) a $.69 Mead notebook and a Bic or :)
>>>>>>>>
My dad has more contacts than most people have MP3s. He has something like a dozen scheduled phone calls and meetings a day. His situation is quite a common one. He replaced his overflowing 2-inch thick contact book with a 1/2-inch thick Sony Clie. He spends less time searching for names and numbers, and the thing gives a nice alert when he has an appointment. Of course, I spend a a lot of time troubleshooting the damn thing, but I figure he saves a good deal more time by using it than I waste fixing it
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I recently managed to persuade my boss to buy me a Palm Zire (yes, I realise that they are cheap, but he also bought me a Sun Blade 100 early last year so I think he has about spent all he is going to on me!) - I was asking about one because I am terrible at keeping notes on little scraps of paper all over my desk, then consequently losing or throwing them away.
:)
I was expecting the Zire, at its entry level price, to be bulky and under-featured - but nothing could be further from the truth. Its very small & light and rammed with cool features. There are a few games on there to keep you entertained (heck, I even downloaded Lemmings for it.. I remeber when that was a flagship game for the PC!!) and lots of useful applications to keep memo's, phone numbers, appointments and more.
Worth every penny..
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
I am still waiting for a device which I will want to buy. The trend apparently is to develop mobile phones into PDAs, while, IMHO, it is so easy to stick a GSM phone into PDA.
;) PDAs are on the other hand are perfect for...hmm...PDAing. The only thing that is missing is a GSM voice connection.
Mobiles are sucky PDAs: they have small screen, ugly keyboard, and no expansion slots.
At the moment I see a PDA with GSM and QWERTY keyboard that will go into my pocket, I'll buy the damn thing.
Leonid Mamtchenkov