Discussion
I've got the £100 version of the Sony Clie. As an organiser is great, and other applications can be loaded onto the pda/memorystick if needed. It's got software to create and work with Word and Excel docs, but it's too small to do anything constructive with.
My personal opinion is the pda's are good as organisers and for viewing information, but if you need to work with information, you would probably be better of with a laptop, or even a Tablet PC.
My personal opinion is the pda's are good as organisers and for viewing information, but if you need to work with information, you would probably be better of with a laptop, or even a Tablet PC.
Have an older IPAQ and it is great. Can email (also have a bluetooth phone) and surf(within limits). Work on word and Excel.
I have a 128MB compact flash card so easy to move documents about. The other thing I use it for is as a dictophone. You could store all your lectures!
The only problem I forsee is it could be a target for thieves.
I have a 128MB compact flash card so easy to move documents about. The other thing I use it for is as a dictophone. You could store all your lectures!
The only problem I forsee is it could be a target for thieves.
Get your self an older model Ipaq from ebay and buy a PC Card (not CF Card) expansion jacket. I have a dual expansion jacket into which I put a 5Gb pcmcia hard drive and a pcmcia Cisco Aironet 340 wi-fi card. Plus if I'm away from an wi-fi access point, I put in a pcmcia modem or pcmcia LAN Card for surfing, email, etc as a standby.
It's much easier than carrying around a laptop for my scripts/programs although the only drawback is the small screen.
Total cost:
PDA - £100 to £150 (36xx or 38xx series)
Wifi Card - £30 (make sure it's a Cisco Aironet 340 or 350) as Cisco support for drivers is excellent
Single Expansion Jacket - £35
Dual Expansion Jacket - £50
5Gb pcmcia HDD - £180 (Toshiba - new)
2Gb pcmcia HDD - £100 (Toshiba - old)
Edited to add that it's much cheaper to buy pcmcia stuff than the equivilant Compact Flash and fit's into my laptop without using an adapter.
>> Edited by sybaseian on Tuesday 16th September 18:11
It's much easier than carrying around a laptop for my scripts/programs although the only drawback is the small screen.
Total cost:
PDA - £100 to £150 (36xx or 38xx series)
Wifi Card - £30 (make sure it's a Cisco Aironet 340 or 350) as Cisco support for drivers is excellent
Single Expansion Jacket - £35
Dual Expansion Jacket - £50
5Gb pcmcia HDD - £180 (Toshiba - new)
2Gb pcmcia HDD - £100 (Toshiba - old)
Edited to add that it's much cheaper to buy pcmcia stuff than the equivilant Compact Flash and fit's into my laptop without using an adapter.
>> Edited by sybaseian on Tuesday 16th September 18:11
It would depend on why you want a PDA, if it's to make notes etc then as said before you're better of with a laptop. The PocketPC ones are best used for apps with minimal user input (ie not writting copious amounts), as such I use my for the following and find it totally indispensible (unfortuate really because it broke last week 
):
1. Checking email (great if you're on the move or if you're Nazi company locks down POP3 access)
2. Playing MP3's (PC card jacket + 5GB kingston hd)
3. Obvious calendar, contacts and tasks (especially since us blokes are apparently crap at remmebering things)
4. GPS (Navman sat nav) both in the car and on foot
Plus techie things for my job:
5. SSH (SSLtelnet) access for remote dial-in
6. wifi snoopers for wifi IDS testing
7. Console connection (physical access for my Sun kit)
The Ipaqs seem to be the best on the market, but that would depend what you want to gain from a PDA. The obvious drawback of the iPaq is that its quite slinky until you start bolting on the jackets (dual pcmcia and navman in particular!!)
Checkout www.expansys.com for decent prices
Oh, I've got an old Philips Nino 300 if you want it for a fiver!!
Steve
): 1. Checking email (great if you're on the move or if you're Nazi company locks down POP3 access)
2. Playing MP3's (PC card jacket + 5GB kingston hd)
3. Obvious calendar, contacts and tasks (especially since us blokes are apparently crap at remmebering things)
4. GPS (Navman sat nav) both in the car and on foot
Plus techie things for my job:
5. SSH (SSLtelnet) access for remote dial-in
6. wifi snoopers for wifi IDS testing
7. Console connection (physical access for my Sun kit)
The Ipaqs seem to be the best on the market, but that would depend what you want to gain from a PDA. The obvious drawback of the iPaq is that its quite slinky until you start bolting on the jackets (dual pcmcia and navman in particular!!)
Checkout www.expansys.com for decent prices
Oh, I've got an old Philips Nino 300 if you want it for a fiver!!
Steve
i want one mainly for college use, like getting info and writing some notes, i also want the internet, i have a GPRS phone, does this mean i can get full acces of the internet or is it just like WAP? I was thinking about a lap top but id much prefer something compact. Ive mainly been looking at this model: HP H1910.
Make sure you buy on *required* features - the Microsoft PDAs have big processors and plenty of features but have, in general, shite battery life. The lovely slim iPaq you mentioned has a tiny battery and will only last for a couple of hours.
I use Palm PDAs for usual PDA-type work as they last for ages and have a particularly efficient interface. For mobile internet / email etc. perhaps you'd be better off with a small laptop?? I have a Sony Vaio C1-MGP with an extended battery that gives 8 hours of continuous use on wireless internet access - this is quite old and there are plenty of alternatives around now.
I use Palm PDAs for usual PDA-type work as they last for ages and have a particularly efficient interface. For mobile internet / email etc. perhaps you'd be better off with a small laptop?? I have a Sony Vaio C1-MGP with an extended battery that gives 8 hours of continuous use on wireless internet access - this is quite old and there are plenty of alternatives around now.
viperman said:
i want one mainly for college use, like getting info and writing some notes, i also want the internet, i have a GPRS phone, does this mean i can get full acces of the internet or is it just like WAP? I was thinking about a lap top but id much prefer something compact. Ive mainly been looking at this model: HP H1910.
Would probably be ok for writing notes with if you bought one of the fold out or thumbpad keyboards.
With GPRS you can get full internet access with speeds similar to modem dialup. I use GPRS with my laptop when travelling (Laptop -> bluetooth -> Nokia 8910 -> GPRS). The killer bit is the costs.
I'm with O2 at the moment so can only quote their prices but afaik vodafone are very similar:
1) Pay as you go
£0/month
0mb inclusive
£2.34/mb
2) 02 Data 5
£11.99/month
5mb inclusive
£1.50/mb
3) Web Professional
£36.99
36mb inclusive
£1.17/mb
Also keep in mind that you pay per mb for up and download bandwidth.
AJLintern said:
I'm also looking at getting a PDA/GPS In-car navigation thing. Not sure how much I'd use the PDA though, but it does seem flexible. TomTom Navigator 2 seems to be the favourite with a Bluetooth GPS receiver - can even be setup to show speed camera sites
I can recommend this setup.
I have an HP ipaq 5450, a cheap bluetooth GPS unit picked up off ebay for about £100, and a copy of TomTom navigator 2. Brilliant, and if you go to pocketGPS.com you can download their database of scamera sites for free.
Works a treat in the car, tho the voice directions are a bit quiet (small speaker in the ipaq), other than that no probs.
The ipaq works a treat as my pda, the character recogniser in pocket PC suits my handwriting (unlike palm's graffiti!) I download the news using AvantGo for free, can surf the net (slowly - no GPRS yet!), and I use it as my MP3 player thanks to the 256Mb SD card that I have!
Truly I would be stuffed without it as it also carries my work diary & contacts in it as well.
Get one, but PERSEVERE with it, it took me about 6 months to use my first ipaq instead of little bits of paper!
Chris
I had a PDA recently but sold it as it didnt really get used. All I used it for was playing MP3's, but at the same time its powering a big colour screen, so the battery life wasnt great.
I only really got it with the intention of putting a film on it to watch on the 16 hour coach trip, unfortunatly it didn't arive in time (some idiot from Ebay).
To type is a pain! If you wanted to type a lot on it then good luck. Mine had handwriting recognition, but it didnt work very well.
Also had a voice recorder, which is fairly useful.
Overall though, it was well built, well set out, and a nice pointless gadget.
[cassiopedia EM500]
I only really got it with the intention of putting a film on it to watch on the 16 hour coach trip, unfortunatly it didn't arive in time (some idiot from Ebay).
To type is a pain! If you wanted to type a lot on it then good luck. Mine had handwriting recognition, but it didnt work very well.
Also had a voice recorder, which is fairly useful.
Overall though, it was well built, well set out, and a nice pointless gadget.
[cassiopedia EM500]
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