Fave All-in-One PDA for Worldwide Connectivity?

dr-vjk asks: "I just bought a new *unlocked* HP iPaq h6315 PocketPC. This phone/PDA supports quad-band GSM, Bluetooth and Wifi. This is a huge improvement over my old travel kit (Sony P900, h4315 iPaq, and Apple iBook). I needed an unlocked unit as the standard h6315's are locked to the T-Mobile network which charges over a buck a minute to roam outside the U.S. I have tested it in Europe and Africa with pre-paid local SIM cards and it works great. It works out of the box with GSM networks around the world for voice and GPRS for IP Data. I loaded SJPhone in order to access my Vonage account over WiFI (Skype doesn't work on this unit yet). It was great talking as long as I wanted with friends back in the U.S. with no concern for long distance charges. They could also call my Vonage number in the U.S. and my PDA would ring in Europe." "I would love to hear if any Slashdot readers have their own all-in-one device they would recommend for world travelers. At a minimum, I think such a device would need GSM, GPRS, Bluetooth and Wifi support. As a physician I need Windows Mobile for the O.S. today but would be willing to look at other solutions (especially open source)."

Comments

Linux?

[Jahf]

So look, I am not dis'ing on Windows, I just want to kill those replies now.

But ... some of us professionally can't afford to be seen running Microsoft products if there is any alternative.

So ... is there a Linux-based PDA phone (running Opie on a PocketPC phone is fine, or GPE)? And if so, will Skype or SJPhone or something similar work on it?

I know that Opie will run on most PocketPCs, but can they be installed on the combi-phones -and- use the phone features?

If so, they've got my money ... if not I'll be sticking with my current setup for awhile longer.

Treo 600/650 - good Internet access, phone sized

[Cato]

I have a Treo 600 which is quad-band GSM (i.e. every GSM band that exists, including South America's 850 MHz), has great support for email, IRC, Jabber, web, etc, and is very pocketable (not much bigger than a normal phone). Since you may be travelling in third world countries, it's worth noting that it looks much like a normal phone, so perhaps is less likely to attract unwelcome attention. The GPRS is pretty good, and I have used it in much of Europe with no problems. It runs Palm OS so there is a huge amount of software, including a lot of freeware - e.g. several IRC clients including the excellent upIRC, many email clients (one built in), lots of databases, etc. It comes with CityTime built in, a nice world clock that knows about timezones and DST all round the world.

The 600 doesn't have Bluetooth - the newer 650 does, though you should make sure the potential voice clipping issue discussed on treocentral.com is not happening or fixable (seems to be related to how high the ringer volume is set).