Palm Vs. Others

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone,

I know this has probably been addressed in the past here...
I'm finally ready to break down and make the switch from paper planner to a Palm or pocket PC

Right now I only would use it for the calendar, project and list functions, possibly for email in the future.

What would be best? Palm 0r the more powerful pocket PCs?

Which Palmis best, the 515 looks nice,is something new coming out soon?

Any info or advice would be appreciated>

Thanks

 

[helenjc]

k-man
I recently upgraded my palm from the 505 to the tungsten t and am very happy with it. You might think you only want to use it for your date book and tasks/emails etc but the utiility goes far beyond that and it is not difficult to set up the little programs that set this thing apart from an electronic 'organizer'. Carry word/excel documents with you, use the voice memo application, read the web version of your newspaper when you are stuck in a queue, carry all the movie session times for your local cinemas etc etc - the list is endless - if you visit www.handango.com or www.palmgear.com you can get the idea of what'a available.
I find the tungsten competes well with the pocketpc features now but is smaller and the Palm OS is nice and simple. That's just my personal preference. I am inseparable from my tungsten and now that I can download and save mp3's to an SD Card I find I'm even taking it on my early morning walk with me - fast music = fast exercise with the bonus of knowing that if I suddenly have a brainwave or must-record thought/idea I can get it down fast in the right place not to be lost in the post-exercise euphoria once I'm home.
Add to this the hi resolution colour on the Tungsten and that is where I would go if I was you.
It's worth spending just a few more dollars on the top-range machine if you can!
good luck.

Helen

 

[Electronic Perceptions]

I've written a lot on this in the past, but I'll try to keep this one short

I've got 6-10 PDAs in my house including old Newtons and a Philips Velo. My current PDA is the Palm Tungsten, and I love it. My husband uses a Compaq iPaq which I stopped using a year or two ago.

The one thing I like about the Ipaq is real writing recognition. I'm a writer by trade, and this was a huge plus for me when I tried out this PDA. It's something that I've sorely missed from the old Newtons. So I ended up using the PPC device for almost a year.

I went back to my trusty Palms though, for several reasons:
1. PPC devices almost *require* that you use MS desktop products. I can't stand that.
2. PPC devices are too much of a "windows in a box". They're clunky and irritating to use.
3. Business and productivity software for a PPC was few and far between when I was using it. Everything seemed to be designed for "cool" and fun instead of being useful. (This was my biggest problem)
4. The PPC needed to be soft reset regularly due to memory leaks. Similar to how my desktop needs to be restarted regularly.

The Palm devices don't have handwriting recognition, but I can live with Graffiti. I'm very good at it and it satisfies my desire to "write" instead of type.

The speed and simplicity of a Palm is one of the reasons I love it. And the fact that there is a wealth of useful, productive software available is the other reason. The device is elegant, and most of the software is small, stable, and nice looking. You wont find many Palm apps that make you scroll to the right in order to see everything... you find this all the time with PPC apps.

I've been attached to the Palm V/5XX line for years because these are super small, and very attractive devices. I've never liked the III/VII models, or Handsprings with the plastic cases. These feel flimsy and cheap to me.

When the Tungsten T came out, I got one and am so glad I did. It has a very nice, solid, gorgeous case, and when the slider is closed it is slightly smaller than the V/5XX models. It has voice memo capability which is nice but I don't use it much, and it has beautiful color along with adjustable brightness. And the 5.0 OS is *extremely* fast.

In any case, I consider the Palm devices to be the best ones for using in a business/productivity setting.

Hope that helps,
Kathy

 

[ScottL]

1. Get a palm OS model. They are easier to use, there is more software, and unless you really need a portable computer you'll be happier with a palm.

2. Get either the tungsten or a sony CLIE. Go to a store that carries them hold them in your hand, see how they feel to you, see how you like the look of the screens, etc. My needs are similar to yours (except I have no need for e-mail) and I've ben quite happy with the sony CLIE T665. This model is being/is phased out. Given your needs you will be fine with one of the lower model CLIEs. I haven't kept track of the model numbers, but I think the one you want is the S20 or S30 (or is it now S33?).