Sell me a PDA!

[John Crichton]

The vitals:

I am partial to the Palm OS. I used it for a few years (4 years ago) and was impressed. I've read all the cnet.com reviews on the current models. I'd like to get some input from y'all.

Price isn't a huge issue at the moment.

I was thinking about getting the Treo 650 (Verizon carrier). I like the onboard QWERTY keyboard but it's not an absolute. Problem is that they charge you like crazy to use the wireless web features. That is a turn-off.

So then I looked to the T5. No on-board wi-fi and the expansion card, by all accounts, is wonky. Doh. Plus no voice recorder.

Basically, I want to use this thing at work. I can config it for the wireless network to access my spreadsheets and meeting maker account. Sure, I'd like to be able to access the WWW in general but it's not a must.

So give me what yah got. If you've had great experiences with Windows Mobile or somesuch I want to hear about it. I've been out of the handheld market just long enough to really want to research it before I sink in a decent amount of money.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I use a Treo 650 on the Sprint Network: for email, calendar and phone it is great, as a PDA it is not so great, lacks voice record and no hand-writing. Battery life is good. I kind of wish I went the 6600 PDA/Phone; bigger screen, OS is Pocket PC.

 

[BeerSkunk]

I use a PPC 6600 available from Sprint. It's a good phone and a good PDA with a built-in QWERTY keyboard. It also has built-in bluetooth. I love it.

There's no built-in phone and no wi-fi. However, I haven't missed either one of those. I was worried I might miss the wi-fi, but with Sprint I have unlimited web access over their network and the download speeds are respectable.

With Pocket Outlook I'm able to connect to any pop3 mail account, so I can check my email from multiple accounts wherever I'm at. That's a huge plus.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm a big user of PalmOS for many years and I wouldn't touch PocketPC with a barge pole - the usability angle is the 'killer app equivalent' for me. Just so you know where I'm coming from...

I've had a great experience with the T3 for a long while now, and it is a solid workhorse. It has a voice recorder but I hardly use that, I don't use wi-fi. I use it for the PIM stuff and all kinds of documents, mostly. The T5 has some good parts and some bad parts, I intend to buy one for my wife so she never has to worry about the battery running out again...

Ultimately I guess you have to go with what gives you the facilities you are going to need day in and day out (not just the ones that you think you might need but don't actually use all that often!).

If possible, try to borrow a PocketPC for a day, see how it feels to you compared with your PalmOS experience. PDAs are used so much during the day that a user experience that suits you is all-important IMO.

Cheers