I'm Looking into buying a PDA

[Rackerz]

I'm looking into buying a PDA. What features should I look for in a PDA, like processor speed and OS etc? What features does a decent PDA have?

Thanks

[red_Marvin]

All that depends on what you want to use it for...

[daynah]

If you want cheap (and I know cheap): I think the lowest of the low low low PDA that your average linux geek can stand without crying that "it can't do anything" is a Palm Tungsten E2. The Palm Tungsten TX basically just adds built in Wifi (not really worth it if you don't have wifi constantly OUT OF THE HOUSE) and a rotated screen.

If money isn't that big of an issue, then there are two major considerations to take into account.

1. Like you said, what operating system. I use Palm. A friend of mine who worked at a computer store got a fancy windows pda phone and it kept crashing on him while he was on the phone. And calling the wrong people. That's one phone out of millions though.

Palm owns the pda market so you can get any program you want on Palm. Many programs are free for palm, and many you have to pay for. Palm looks childish to me. But on the other hand, it also looks very friendly.

Everyone knows how to code for windows, so if it's not out yet, it will be soon, but you will have to pay for it. Having windows on a pda looks very business like. But, it's a little more difficult to work with because you have to tap harder things... on Windows, if you lose your stylus on a rainy day (it happens) and you don't have nails, you may be sad till you get to office max.

2. Secondly, you need to decide whether you want a keyboard or not.

I want a big screen. I love... touching things that I own.

(pause for s******s)

Okay. If you have a keyboard, say, like on a treo, that's taking up your screen room. You will not realize how much until you open up Palm's Microsoft Office-To-Go (very cool) and have a very difficult time typing. I have not had a hard time "learning" graffiti. In fact... I didn't learn it at all. The only letters that people really write differently (as opposed to wrong) you can set how you write it in preferences. Also, you can write with your fingernails AND finger tips. I do it all the time, I hate the stylus.

On the other hand, if you have bad handwriting and really, adamantly cannot learn graffiti... minus the fact that you're inhibiting your own learning with a mental block, then you do have keyboards available to you. There may be a flippy pda you can get (those were way out of my price range, I don't allow myself to look at them for long) which lets you keep your screen.

----

After you make those two decisions, you will have narrowed down your choices of PDAs by roughly a quarter.

You want bluetooth. Even if you don't have another bluetooth device... every pda has bluetooth and it'll make you happy on a rainy day.

You want it to have Documents-To-Go if you get Palm or similar thing on Windows.

You may want it to have wifi built in. If you are in a wifi area a lot, you'll like this feature tooons. But if you're not and you're looking cheap (that's also a first level feature), don't worry about it.

About processor speed? PDAs never really use their whole brain unless they're playing movies. Are you planning on playing movies? Even when I play music, my wittle tungy E2 twitters away like nothin'

Cameras on pdas are awful. If you really must take a bad picture, do you not already have a camera phone?

Most important thing is... make sure you get another memory card! Also, it takes about a week of using your PDA HARDCORE and then... you'll be addicted. If you just kinda half way use it and expect it to psychicly suck in the first huge influx of information about your life that it's gotta take in, then there is no way you're going to love it. It'll become a symbiotic relationship and, creepily enough, you'll be able to spot your model of pdas that have the exact same case (like the E vs the E2) a mile away 'cause you're so glued to it. Get ready! :)

[Rackerz]

It sounds as if Palm is the way to go, I need wifi and bluetooth because I'll just basically be surfing the net in hotspots and possibly watching a movie or two. I'm not in much need of a keyboard, what can you recommend me?

[ComplexNumber]

It sounds as if Palm is the way to go, I need wifi and bluetooth because I'll just basically be surfing the net in hotspots and possibly watching a movie or two. I'm not in much need of a keyboard, what can you recommend me?
palm per se is virtually dead. this (http://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3) should help. nokia make some good symbian smartphones with the features you want.




Palm owns the pda market so you can get any program you want on Palm.palm OS is virtually dead, but was once the most popular. actually, the PDA market is dying quickly and the smartphone markety is increasing at n astonomical rate. for PDA features, smartphones are the way to go. as far as smartphone market share goes, symbian has abut 76% of the market, linux has about 14%, windows has about 3%, and "other" has the rest.


ps avoid windows mobile because its very resource intensive and not very reliable. if you don't believe me, just read the reviews. for example of its inefficiency, a simbian UIQ smartphone running on a 220MHz processor operates at a higher speed than a windows mobile phone running on a 400MHz Xscale processor.

[ixus_123]

Even with a basic ine one you can run the swish looking Giantdisc

http://www.giantdisc.org/