PDA for Tech Savy Students?

Kichigai Mentat asks: "When I was a student in High School, I was quite disorganized. I found that a good organizer helped me out, and eventually got myself a reliable Palm m105. As I'm about to go into college, I'm considering picking up a new machine to replace my nearly-dead PDA. However, the selection seems to be either Palm OS, which I find rather limiting in terms of what you can and cannot do on the system (I LIKE being able to organize things into sub-folders), or Window Mobile, which isn't Linux or Mac OS X friendly. What sort of third-party options are available that work with existing PIM apps, will work without Windows, and won't cost an arm and a leg?"

Comments

Obligatory "Hipster" Post

[Noksagt]

One of the big trends floating around with the "GTD" nerds is carrying a small paper notebook or a pile of index cards. This works quite well--you never run out of batteries & can trade info for people. Some nerd chick thought it was "cool because it was like a lab notebook."

I've gone through the PALM, Clie (which runs Palm OS), and the Sharp Zaurus. The Zaurus is good, but the batteries would always die on me. Paper is great!

Alpha Geek PDA

[CompMD]

I work for a university spinoff company, and operate all over the place, from remote USAF bomb ranges to KU's campus. I have a UTStarcom PPC6700. It does EVERYTHING. 420MHz Intel PXA270, 128MB memory, 1GB miniSD, EV-DO (~2.5Mbps on Sprint around Lawrence, KS and Kansas City), 802.11b, Bluetooth, 1.3MP camera, WinMo 5. I have loaded a full featured media player (TCPMP) for DivX movies, PocketPutty and Terminal Services Client to manage the office network when I'm away, and AgileMessenger for multiprotocol IMming. The phone integrates seamlessly with Contacts, and that all syncs up to Outlook at the office. Its a serious gadget and it helps me get work done a lot faster. It's damn near a laptop replacement.

Get a PDA, not a "computer"

[seebs]

I have Zauruses, a Nokia N770, a PocketPC, and a Palm.

The Palm is the one I use day in and day out. If Handera hadn't folded, I might still be on my Handera 330, which wasn't even color.

Here is what you need:
1. Datebook/calendar software of some sort.
2. Usable text entry.
3. A good alarm.
4. Decent battery life.

That's it. Day in and day out, that's what matters. Can you take a note quickly enough to get it down before you forget? Can you get the alarm to go off at the time you need it to, and will it do common things (snooze for 10 minutes, for instance) with simple clicks?

If you can get that, you're done. You have a PDA. Do not let "features" distract you. My Compaq iPaq, with a 640x480 screen, untold memory, both SD and CF slots, wifi, and so on, sits on a shelf somewhere. My Palm with Datebook5 goes with me ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE. There is no comparison. PalmOS is technically inept; so what? It works. When an alarm is due, the machine makes a piercing noise I can detect even if the PDA is in a bag. It can go in a bag without breaking instantly. If I forget to charge it for a day, it still works.

In short, it's a kickass PDA. Which is what I want. Yeah, I would like it if PalmOS sucked less. But PocketPC isn't in the running, and after a couple of months trying to run various Linux-hosted PDA apps, I went back to Datebook5. It's just plain better.

If you want a portable computer, think of that as totally distinct from your PDA. The portable computer is for hacking on, for debugging interesting problems, for spending a week wondering why you can't get a new kernel to work with the sound hardware. The PDA runs one or two off the shelf apps and does it reliably and consistently.