Microsoft’s Pocket PC 2002 or Palm OS 4.1?
Why?
Personally I would prefer hardware from palm with O/S from MS .
I have attended this ex. in Atlanta where Kiocera came up with a device loaded with OS from an unknown company and completely customizable and compatible with Blackberry/PDA/Cellular/Pager/GPS/VCS. I believe this device will be available shortly in the market as they will be testing it in Japan 1st and then they will be targeting North-American markets
I have used Casio’s E-15 years ago, which used Windows CE 2.0 and after that I swore off MS OS for handheld. Reason is simple. Handheld does not need to do ALL things we expect from a desktop, so the OS should be simple enough for a device of that size.
Now, when it was time for an upgrade, I opted for Palm OS 4.1 with Sony’s hardware (615C). Reason, a huge list of available software, simple OS, and a nice gadget, over all.
Even though Pocket PC 2002’s colors are much sharper but Sony’s color screens are pretty darned good too. The only reason I wanted a color was because it is less strain on the eyes.
I don’t use Palm for telephone numbers, cz all of them are stored in my cell phone. And hand to heart, I use my Palm primarily for Scheduling and To-Do lists. I am sure a much cheaper touch screen alternative could have done the same stuff as well, but getting a good product is always a good investment.
I am really looking forward for the time, when there is a nice practical convergance of cellphone and PDA so we don’t have to carry both. Up till now, this has been a failure. A phone should look and feel like a phone and a PDA should look and feel like a PDA. Kyocera’s earlier Samrtphones were too bulky, and Samsung’s ventures look too PDA’sh and not a cell phone. Handspring’s Treo also does not feel like a phone.
The only product which has excited me so far is this one. The new generation Kyocera 7135 Smartphone which will be launched in a few months.
From the outside looks like a typical flip-open cellphone
[thumb=A]outside.JPG[/thumb]
From the inside, has a full phone key-pad and all the niceties of a PDA
[thumb=A]inside7135.JPG[/thumb]
yes..Casio has nice PDAs...sony pdas arent bad either. You can get a top of the line for 800CDN(with an alright cam feature)..not bad considering a compaq ipaq costs 999CDN.
(
For some reason, I am not sure if I will ever use my PDA as a digital camera.
In theory, its a nice feature, but I want good quality pics and for that I'd rather use my proper digital camera. Obviously it is very easy to move pics into a PDA using Sync, so that I do, but to pay extra for a low-quality digicam built into a PDA (especially when it increases its size to slightly more than acceptable) is not something I recommend.
If someone wants Palm OS, then don't buy Palm hardware. They are always over-priced and feature-poor.
Handspring is always cheaper with similar features, and Sony is consistenly best-rated for Palm OS PDAs.
Anyone planning to buy a Pocket PC-based PDA, wait!
:)
Dell is coming out with its PDA Axim X5 in Comdex (Las Vegas). Priced $199 for 32Mb and $299 for 64Mb. Its much cheaper than comparative products from other vendors.
[thumb=A]cap_dell_axim.JPG[/thumb]
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Faisal: *
Anyone planning to buy a Pocket PC-based PDA, wait!
:)
Dell is coming out with its PDA Axim X5 in Comdex (Las Vegas). Priced $199 for 32Mb and $299 for 64Mb. Its much cheaper than comparative products from other vendors.
[thumb=A]cap_dell_axim.JPG[/thumb]
[/QUOTE]
first a projector now a pda too?ibm is probably peeing in its pants.
IBM is in the services world and not the PDA market.
I also want to buy a decent PDA, but I dont know why these are so darn expensive here in Europe.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by hmcq: *
IBM is in the services world and not the PDA market.
[/QUOTE]
I think he is referring to the server and the PC market. IBM is still a player in that. Whichever market Dell enters, it rules. Its all about the price, u see. :)
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by SaadiaB: *
I also want to buy a decent PDA, but I dont know why these are so darn expensive here in Europe.
[/QUOTE]
Depending on what you want to do, u can get a PDA from 18 bucks to 799 bucks. (All in US$). So when u say they are expensive, I assume u mean the high-end.
The low-end Palm PDA's cost no more than 100 bucks. Even cheaper models are also available from other manufacturers which offer Calendar, Contact, To-Do, Memos, touch screen stylus and sync facility with a regular computer.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by SaadiaB: *
I also want to buy a decent PDA, but I dont know why these are so darn expensive here in Europe.
[/QUOTE]
How about buying it online. :) Most of the websites do international shipping.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ahmadjee: *
How about buying it online. :) Most of the websites do international shipping.
[/QUOTE]
Great Idea, how about telling me about some online sites. :)
Faisal, I don't want the real cheap ones, in decent I mean with color screens and to my knowledge, the cheapest one I have seen are around 300-600 €
I think this mixed mobile & PDA is not bad too. This Dell PDA is price wise great. U think we can get it here too ?
Sadia,
You can look through the following Under $200 PDAs at Yahoo. It will depend on which one you buy & if they ship internationally.
Saadia,
Color screens are great because they reduce the strain on the eyes. I was in a similar position, cz I wanted a color screen and was not willing to fork out a huge amount for this as I only planned to use my PDA for calendar and To-Do's. All my telephone contacts are in my cellphone and it is too much hassle, with little utility to enter them again in the PDA.
The fusion of cellphone and PDA is really exciting, but is expensive at this point.
My solution was to go for Palm OS (as I find it more suitable for the small device size of a PDA) and to go for Sony, as their color screens are much better than Palm's. I got myself a Sony Clie' PEG-T615C for about $250. Its one of the smallest PDA's in its category and can do a lot of things (which I probably won't even use). To go for Palm's cheapest color option (which I think is M130) is not recommended bcz Palm itself acknolwedged that the color screen in that device is not as good as claimed on its package (it doesn't show 65k colors). Last I knew, Palm offered to refund all unsatisfied customers.
The decision also depends on what you want to use your PDA for. If you want to use it for online emails and stuff, then you might want to opt for Handspring Treo family with a builtin keyboard. The stylus/graffiti/soft keyboard ain't good for longer data entry. For most PDA's you can buy an optional extra small keyboard or a folding keyboard. Palm i790 is internet enabaled but is b&w. Its quite cheap actually. Or you can opt for Blackberry but that is mostly for corporate users.
The rest of the stuff now offered in PDA's is mostly bells and whistles e.g. MP3 player, built-in camera, games etc etc, which are not as useful for many people. One thing which is really useful is the ability to sync Word/Excel/html files. So you can carry them with you. Especially in US, I wanted the ability to download driving directions in my PDA before going out to a new address. That is something really useful, cz otherwise I'd be printing all that stuff and take it with me. As an option, Handsrping offers a Springboard expansion for a GPS device. That should be cool too.
Ok guys it's April 2003 and I need to buy someone one of these babies.
So what would be a good economical choice..
Requirements
- Color
- Ability to work on MS documents
- Price
Please suggest. Thanks
Well, pretty much all PDA’s can work on MS docs (if not out of the box, than with easily available and cheap software) so thats basically a non-issue.
If color and price are the only two considerations, then I would assume the price for a new one starts from $199 all the way to $899.
Devices running Palm OS are generally cheaper than PocketPC devices. Palm has its own m130 but it got some really bad reviews because contrary to what is on the box, it does NOT display 65,000 colors, but more like 16 colors 
Sony has some neat models with great color screens. Check out Sony SJ22 on Yahoo! Shopping. Its price starts from $199 plus S&H. For same price you can get Sony CLIE PEG-T615C (which I use myself). Very decent device. The rest go higher.
so what's that additional software that allows one to work on MS docs on Palm OS? does it come from MS? costs?
Most new devices (whether Palm or Pocket PC) can read MS documents out of the box cz the manufacturer adds third party software to the whole package. Else, Documents-to-Go (Words-to-Go or Sheets-to-Go) will do the trick.
No, the software won't be developed by Microsoft. These are cheap software developed by third party developers. Search on download.com and you may be able to get some Freeware for this. Almost everyone uses PDAs to read MS docs. So its not exactly an unsual request.