Thinking of buying a HANDHELD ORGANIZER - suggestions? (1 Viewer)

[Shayne Lebrun]

Steven,

That we will. I'm a sysadmin, and I'm a firm believer that technology for technology's sake is just wrong. And I personally believe that, at this point in the game, Unicode and sound support on PDAs are just that.

And I'll point out that Palm0S 5 running on the ARM chips will rock your world.

 

[rajiv]

One other thing. You can't play 'Need for Speed' on a Palm OS based PDA, but you can on a Pocket PC.

 

[Camp]

Yea, but Need For Speed sucks!

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

There are wireless lan cards available in the Compactflash format at least, which many Pocket PC's have slots for.

That's (in my opinion) another key selling point for the PocketPC, sheer storage space and expandability.

Yes, if you want to just jot down notes and make use of a calendar, you can live with a Palm. However, if you want to do anything that involves looking at the screen for any length of time, a black-on-white color screen alone makes Pocket PC's worth it...

There is a reason why Palm based PDA's are losing market share rapidly, and it is at least partially because the machines are so inferior when it comes to the hardware. Even the latest color variants have dim screens with much lower resolution than the Pocket PC's, to mention just one thing.

As for usability issues... well, neither is perfect out of the box. You still need to add third party software to get full use out of any of them. Fortunately you can get some really great freeware to do just that.

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

There is a reason why Palm based PDA's are losing market share rapidly,

Yeah, I think they're down from 90 percent of the market to 85 percent.

 

[Steven K]

Shayne,

While I agree that for the typical American consumer, at this time, Unicode support is not crucial. However, as both development of software and software usage turns to a more "multi-lingual" approach, having Unicode support is a must.

Technology for technnology's sake? No, I see it rather as "thinking about the future."

The fact of the matter is that Palm IS losing market share. Again, I will reiterate my point from earlier. If you are looking for a device to use as a phone book and address book, and to take some notes on, then go with a Palm. Why? Because you dont need the power of a PocketPC. However, keep in mind that in the future, when you realize how howerful PocketPCs can be, you'll want one. And, you just wont be able to hack the stuff you can do on a PocketPC with a Palm.

 

[Bob Hill]

I just thought I might throw my 2 cents in. I own a small business where every one of my employees has a Palm OS device that has seamless integration to a number of shared Excel spreadsheets and SQL based databases that we use to manage our production schedule, time sheets, job costing, etc. The Palm based devices are far and away the best value for my needs. That said, my opinion on the CE vs. Palm OS device debate as well as any other techie tool "what's best" questions is that you get whatever tool that best suits your needs. I actually have both a Pocket PC and a Palm device and like them both but use the Palm device almost exclusivly because it is the best tool for what I do.

Why make it ugly just because you can?

 

[Duncan Barth]

IMHO it all comes down to what you need/want to do with a PDA *now*.

I've got an ancient Palm IIIx. My needs are simple: a contact list, some calculators, a calender/tasklist, and a way to read (mostly) text documents. It still works perfectly well for those tasks. If it were to break, I'd probably buy a PalmOS based device again because it would meet my needs in the same way.

PalmOS just works. Its simple, but for me thats one of the strong points. It quickly does everything I want it to do.

For my needs a PocketPC is way overpowered. Which can be a bad thing. Too many features that just get in the way of doing the tasks I need to do. I agree with Shayne: Technology for technology's state is bad.

There has been discussion about sound and unicode. I'm not sure what other peoples needs are, but I can't see a compelling reason to have either yet. Why pay more money for features one isn't going to use?

But a couple years down the road, there might be some PDA 'killer app' that requires sound and unicode. But *thats* when I'll buy a new PDA then. And hopefully by then, it'll be integrated into a cellphone, which is the way the whole PDA market is going anyway.

 

[Rachmat Hartono]

Another vote for PocketPC.
I have been using both PocketPC (iPaq) and Palm. I happened to also develop software for both of them. PocketPC is easier to develop for and I can do more stuff with it. As PDAs, they both have same features. You can do things in Palm as well as PPC. However, PocketPC has much more potentials because of:
-much faster CPU
-bigger memory (64 MB)
-Voice recognition (iPaqs 36xx and above)
-Wireless support (802.11b) -> this is awesome
-bluetooth for iPaq 3875
-Terminal services (similar to PC Anywhere).
You can also surf the web directly with Pocket Internet Explorer and do word/excel.
Palm is adequate for PDA, but I think it's time for Palm to upgrade their underpowered CPU... There is only as much you can do with DragonBall's 33 Mhz* this days...
*PS: if you really want Palm, check out sony's latest PEG-NR70V. I has twice faster processor (66 Mhz). This is as close as you get to PPC and I love the design

 

[Steven K]

-Voice recognition (iPaqs 36xx and above)

My company writes Voice-recognition SDKs for PocketPCs... it's really cool stuff, and very accurate.

 

[Will]

As a software developer (yes, I also develop on CE as well)
---
Palm will be dead soon, and CE is the future of PDAs.

I wish I knew anyone who thought they knew the future with half as much certainty as the MicroSerfs do. Uncle Bill should be so proud. IBM had it's day. Now it's MS Windoze's day. The future does not belong to the Dinosaurs. But the dinosaurs don't know that. Pride before the fall.