PDAs at the Game Table

[MythosaAkira]

Just a poll to see what type is more common among you folks, if any (and thus whether the things I'm contemplating are worth doing). I realize that PalmOS has a bigger market share, but I'm more concerned about the gamer demographic (er...specifically the gamers who come to ENWorld and read this particular message board, I guess ).

 

[gariig]

I voted once for my girlfriend as she has a Palm. Also, one of our other players has a Palm OS. Just FYI. However, there needs to be a good Palm program out there.

Gariig

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I persoanlly don't use one at the gaming table and I wouldn't let my players. There way to shiny of an object not to be a distraction.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Picked up an iPAQ last year and have been very happy with it. Things I have downloaded and used on it, GenCon event book in speadsheet format, documents, some pics of monsters. Also use note, to draw quick maps/diagrams and have used the recording feature to take notes and play back sounds.

Ready am looking forward to tablet PCs as soon as the price starts to drop on them!

 

[Plane Sailing]

I use PalmOS for my jump calculator program, my craft calculator program and for character sheets on a spreadsheet.

Cheers

 

[Artoomis]

I use PCGenView on my Visor Deluxe (Palm OS). Fantastic program. Not perfect, but a great play aid.

I make my character in PCGen and then use PCGenView in-game for my attacks and spell casting. Works great!!

It does a great job of keeping track of spells, proper attack bonuses for each strike in a full attacks, damage multipliers, etc.

 

[El Seso]

I had a Palm Vx for a while that I loved, but never could find a use for it at the table. I'm now using an iPaq, and the only use I've found for it so far is an equipment list in Excel; I can have it automatically calculate my weight.
I'd love to use it for my character sheet, but haven't found anything cool in that way yet.

 

[Shapermc]

Ready am looking forward to tablet PCs as soon as the price starts to drop on them!

:drool:

 

[Ranger REG]

Tablet PC needs to work on the glitches first. I'd rather wait for the second generation.

BTW, which is better: Palm-powered PDA or WinCE PocketPC? And I don't mean just the special features but performance.

 

[Plane Sailing]

BTW, which is better: Palm-powered PDA or WinCE PocketPC? And I don't mean just the special features but performance.

I suppose it depends upon what constitutes "better" for your own purposes.

My personal preference is for PalmOS, because it is lightweight, intuitive, doesn't require much in the way of resources and does everything that I want (and more!). It is well designed for the use of the stylus, with lots of sensible default behaviours.

I don't like the PocketPC form-factor, and each time I tried to use it I found the modified version of the desktop O/S difficult to get to grips with. The higher resolution screen would have been attractive, but once I was able to get a 320x320 res PalmOS unit back in 2001 (Sony Clie) I've not looked back.

This is just my opinion, of course. I've seen virtual blood spilt in flame wars over such topics on boards dedicated to one or the other!

Cheers