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

Palm Tungsten

[adoll]

Check out my journal entry on my Tungsten. Love the little guy, but not for doing addresses and timekeeping. I read newspapers, listen to OGG files and flip through databases at work.

-AD

Re:Palm is a sinking ship

[iCEBaLM]

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

Sharp Zaurus

[SHEENmaster]

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.

Dont get a Palm

[m4g02]

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Dont get stuck with an useless and outdated OS, meet the future and get a Zaurus (or wait for the IBM Linux handhelds).

Re:Palm is a sinking ship

[frdmfghtr]

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.