Ferghis
First Post
Seconded. I used a palm for a long while, to help me juggle work and school, and then decided to upgrade to the treo 650. I use it a lot, and I use almost all of its functions. I use it for email, for wordprocessing (I took notes in class with a folding bluetooth keyboard), for scheduling, as an mp3 player, to play games on, and to browse the internet. Having said that, if I didn't use all these different functions more or less frequently, I'd have bought a different product. If you think you'll mostly do one of these things, and just want the option of doing the others, then I'd consider something else, because PDAs do all of them poorly.Fenris said:So truly think about how much you will use it, what you will use it for. As others have said there are those that love them and can't live without them. I don't have many scheduling needs, so the usefulness is more limited for me. Nor do I have business contacts. I just wasn't using it enough to warrent the expense or time.
Figure out what you want, what you need and go from there. Even if it's just for Bejeweled
There are phones that allow you to play games, mp3s, and browse the internet. I wouldn't have bought a PDA just for those. Phones have scheduling functions as well, but they're not worth much because they don't integrate with your computer and often don't offer other scheduling features that are indespensable (repeating appointments, integration with contacts, to do and calendar distinction, etc.). If you are seriously interested in a portable decive mainly for gaming, I would seriously consider a phone (cheaper), or better yet, a specialised portable platform (better games). PDAs aren't the most stable things on the market, and over the 5 years I've had to deal with my palms, I've had to reinstall the whole system 3 times. I didn't lose much because everything gets backed up on the computer, but the PDA was unuseable till I reinstalled. The main considerations here is that I can carry around one clunky thing instead of two, if I get a phone that does what I want it to do. And I need the phone.
As far as wordprocessing is concerned, I'm in my second semester taking notes on my palm, and I would really rather have a small laptop (I've been looking at one of 10" screen ones). The smaller screened ones are cheaper, and you can pick up a passable one for about $600 (plus warranty) if you're cheap about it. Not that wordprocessing is undoable, I do it, but I have go over my notes later on my computer (which is good for me: it's a review), so anything I do on my palm is far from a finished product.
For just plain old scheduling, the cheaper PDAs are unbeatable. I got my girfriend one on the cheap, and she really enjoys it a lot. It cost me about $80, and realplayer offers (offered?) a free mp3 player for it. Don't forget to sync often. A cheaper Treo is also coming out soon, and is an intelligent option if you're able to use cingular.
For email, the blackberry is still the best thing out there, by a good stretch. Despite the lawsuits and hype, it works seamlessly. I use a Treo, and I can well recognise the blackberry's advantage in this sector.
Another goal a few PDAs are really good at are storing info and media. This makes them a more flexible version of an ipod, but many will probably direct you to the original item (some version of ipod).
Again, I'd seriously consider your goals before dropping some loot on a gadget. Hope this helps.
