PDA? Which to buy?

[Vrylakos]

Ok, I want a comparatively cheap PDA.

I'd like a Pocket PC.

I wouldn't mind a cell phone/pda combo if it worked well, but the phone deal is not essential.

What is essential: I want to be able to write on it, if I have to, either by itself or with a foldout keyboard thingie which I will gladly buy if it will work.

I've looked at the Toshiba e310, e355...
Saw the Sidekick and wished I'd gotten in on the $50 Amazon.com sale.

However, I've got no experience with pdas or cell phones, so I'm not sure what I should get, what I should watch out for...

Anyone have any advice?

Thank you!

Vrylakos

 

[drothgery]

On the off chance that there are some Windows programmers who hang out here and haven't heard of this yet...

If you've got a current MSDN Subscription or copy of Visual Studio.NET 2003, go to https://vstudio.joleschgroup.com/ and you can get a free ViewSonic V37. But hurry; the offer expires on Monday.

 

[jdavis]

Toshiba E310 PocketPC 32MB Color PDA Only $158.99
Won't last long at this price.
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=E310-R

This is the same place I got my Dell Axim for cheap. If you don't mind factory refurbished(90 day warranty) you can save a lot of money, you just have to keep your eyes open for when they get stuff in.

Here is a decent PDA comparison article from Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/newsletter/vol3/23/pda.html

 

[onkelarie]

notebook

A little notebook with a pencil does the job quite well too Costs only US$3,- at the most?

but seriously... A PDA is pretty kewl, but it´s still... erh... clumsy to use most of the time. If it´s for quick notes and such, nothing beats the PnP solution, also when travelling.

I bought my PDA a few years back (3 years ago I think), running winCE 2.11. I used it probably for 6 months or so and switched back to my good ol´retro agenda

 

[Lazybones]

I've had my Dell Axim ($350, the 400mhz one) for a few months now. It's great, easy to use, have 256mb Compact Flash and Smart Digital cards in the memory slots, so I've got about five hours of music, 100 ebooks (including most of the Story Hours archived here), several games (Scrabble is cool, and inexpensive, plus there are decent free versions of Go and Chess at www.download.com). And that's exclusive of the scheduling/contacts stuff which is pretty good (it took about a month to train myself to use it, but now I can kiss the stack of sticky notes and old envelopes that was my prior scheduling system goodbye). Plus the battery lasts for a good 6-8 hours.

The 300mhz Dell starts at $300 and is often on sale.

 

[Vrylakos]

HM, I've been looking at the Toshiba e335, and the Ipaq 2215. The 2215 is probably too expensive for me right now, but I'll keep my eyes on ebay just in case.

I'm concerned, though, that Toshiba seems to have a bad rep for not supporting their products very well. Anyone have any experience with that?

Axim looks nice too... sigh...

Vrylakos

 

[astralpwka]

I went with the Dell Axim (the cheaper one, it's new at $200 on the dell site right now, methinks). I also picked up a mini thumb keyboard, so I can write at work.

Biggest strength: Microsoft Pocket Word and Excel. I can now write anywhere.

Next strength: Ereader and Acrobat pocket reader! No more carrying around paperbacks!!!

Biggest Weakness: Wife calls it my Umbilical Cord from the computer. I sleep with it next to my pillow so as to always be able to record my thoughts, day or night.

 

[Vrylakos]

I went with the Dell Axim (the cheaper one, it's new at $200 on the dell site right now, methinks). I also picked up a mini thumb keyboard, so I can write at work.

Biggest strength: Microsoft Pocket Word and Excel. I can now write anywhere.

Next strength: Ereader and Acrobat pocket reader! No more carrying around paperbacks!!!

Biggest Weakness: Wife calls it my Umbilical Cord from the computer. I sleep with it next to my pillow so as to always be able to record my thoughts, day or night.

Ooo! Voice recording whenever I want!
Sigh... ok, I'll go take a look at the Axim. Thanks, Astralpwka!

Vrylakos

 

[astralpwka]

Actually I think most of the Pocket PC's do the same thing. But I *really* like my Axim.

 

[Vrylakos]

How is the thumb keyboard? I was considering getting one of the small folding keyboards, as writing away from the PC is one of the points of getting the PDA.

Vrylakos