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PDA Recommendations?

Ah, yes, battery life is another thing to consider. I think most devices get about 2 hours or so, which is fine. My Tablet's standard battery gets that, and has not been a problem*.

But, anything more than two hours would be a plus, of course.

(* I also have a supplemental battery, for the Tablet, for longer trips without a power socket.)
 
Wowbagger said:
If the age of pure PDAs is truly at an end, I wonder: Would it be possible to buy a PDA that has cell-phone capabilities, but NOT pay for the cell-phone contract? In other words, you would be using the pure-PDA parts, and just not be allowed to use the cell-phone part.

I doubt it, myself, but it I figured I would ask, just in case.
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Well actually I'm pretty certain that any provider would sell anyone a device and just not activate the phone plan. For Blackberrys, at our university people get them without phone plans all the time. But that's not exactly the same situation you're drawing because they still get the data plans for their email. But anyway, I'm 90% certain that any store would be willing to sell just the hardware alone. The problem is, though, that most prices you see are discounted ones where you have to sign up for a year or two of cell service to get it, and the real price of a PDA would be even higher. If the "with service" prices are already in the two- to three-hundreds for some models (and the mid one-hundreds for some others), you'd be looking some ridiculous prices in the eye for no-cell-service phone/PDA hardware by itself. The prices would be painful, obscene, even.

That's why I suggested used models. Just like with cars, you gotta look, but occasionally you find someone who'd ditched out a very lightly used model simply because a newer one was out. And the price won't necessarily induce heart stoppage.
 
ElMondoHummus said:
The problem is, though, that most prices you see are discounted ones where you have to sign up for a year or two of cell service to get it, and the real price of a PDA would be even higher. If the "with service" prices are already in the two- to three-hundreds for some models (and the mid one-hundreds for some others), you'd be looking some ridiculous prices in the eye for no-cell-service phone/PDA hardware by itself. The prices would be painful, obscene, even.
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Yeah, good point. But, in this age of deflation, I could always hope for a bargain!

But, I am scoping out some lightly used models, too.
 
Wowbagger said:
Ah, yes, battery life is another thing to consider. I think most devices get about 2 hours or so, which is fine. My Tablet's standard battery gets that, and has not been a problem*.

But, anything more than two hours would be a plus, of course.
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I've had my Palm TX for four years now and have had no problems with it at all. I do all my reading on it and it runs from 4 to 10 hours a day, 365 days a year. It will go about 5-6 hours without a charge and will sync up with the home computer via a wi-fi connection. I have video files on a 2 Gb SD card that I can watch on long trips or when I'm waiting somewhere.

I would be completely lost without it.
 
Wowbagger said:
Ah, yes, battery life is another thing to consider. I think most devices get about 2 hours or so, which is fine.
Click to expand...

One of the things that put me off Pocket PC type PDAs was the Ipaq that I had. It had very short battery life, compared to the Palms and Psions I'd been used to, and would continue to run down even when it was turned off. When power ran out, anything that was stored in the main part of the device (as opposed to on the SD card) would be lost. It was awful :(

I would hope that they have improved things in that department.
 
There's not much in the way of PDA only devices anymore. As pointed out, most have cell capability as well. On top of that, most of those devices are much more expensive if purchased without a voice/data plan.

If that doesn't bother you, maybe you want to try a Neo Freerunner from the OpenMoko project. That is, if you like doing everything yourself and understand Linux fairly well. :D

Me, I liked my Palm Lifedrive but that's obsolete now. I also like my new HTC/T-Mobile/Google G1 smartphone. Friends have enjoyed their Palm Treos but most have switched to the simpler Centro. And Blackberries are big with some of my other aquantances.
 
I just picked up a refurbed Dell Axim X51V for $120 at geeks.com. I had dropped my old one a few months ago and got the "white screen of death". If you can find an X50 or X51 for cheap, it meets all of your requirements, plus it has a hi-res screen, which looks beautiful if you can find apps that utilize it.

Now I just have to go through the basement to find my old one so I can get the nice leather case I had...
 
A late entry. I too am looking for a PDA. Aside from the same basics as the OP I'm looking for something where I can do a down and dirty studio floor plan and later transplant it to my laptop. How many of the suggestions so far support bitmap drawing by stylus?
 
Honestly, an iTouch might do for you what you want. I got one as a gift from my brother, and have found it to be quite useful for my purposes beyond just holding mp3s and videos. I use the contacts, notes, the little scheduling app, and also have added various other free apps in the app store ("The Princess of Mars" was particularly cool to have in e-book form for free).
 
Got me an iPhone I love the little thing.
The iTouch may do it for you. Tons of aps and it plays music and surfs the net via wi-fi too.

Ediy: ooops GreNME got here first.
 
I got a used samsung q1ultra and threw ubuntu mobile on it. it's slightly larger than a PDA, but it is a full OS. I sync it between my server/laptop/desktop via rsync and it's nice to have a bash shell on demand. I also use it for an oversized ipod and have a GPS usb antenna for it that I use for tom-tom style directions (there's a bunch of GPS projects in the ubuntu repo.)

It's price new is kinda steep, but rather than a pda I think netbooks/umpc's are a good choice.

That's my 2 cents. YMMV.

Also, I am a big fan of the Nokia N810. it's a full umpc but the size of a palm.
 
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Well, this might help you resist: if you were to use the iTouch, it would require you running iTunes, to which you'd then be syncing to Outlook. No direct synchronization methods are available for the iStuff, despite the qualifying statements you may hear. Also, the calendaring for the iTouch and iPhone is limited, not as good as iCal or the Outlook calendar.

For the former, that may not be a big deal for you if it works okay. For that I can't say because I don't sync my iTouch with my Windows computers-- iTunes is not allowed to control my media on my Win PCs. For the latter, keep this article in mind for checking if what you want is supported. I think that the basics of what you want are, but I've not been a huge fan of Apple's software for Windows, so YMMV. I loves me my iTouch and my MBP, but I'm not inclined to mix them with my desktop if I don't need to.
 
Ducky said:
I got a used samsung q1ultra and threw ubuntu mobile on it. it's slightly larger than a PDA, but it is a full OS. I sync it between my server/laptop/desktop via rsync and it's nice to have a bash shell on demand. I also use it for an oversized ipod and have a GPS usb antenna for it that I use for tom-tom style directions (there's a bunch of GPS projects in the ubuntu repo.)

It's price new is kinda steep, but rather than a pda I think netbooks/umpc's are a good choice.

That's my 2 cents. YMMV.

Also, I am a big fan of the Nokia N810. it's a full umpc but the size of a palm.
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You must look supercool with that thing hanging on your belt :cool:
 
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