PDA's

[Grant Lamontagne]

We have an interesting discussion going on in SOSAK right now about PDA's and I thought it might be neat to see what folks here are using.  I know alot of you are SOSAK members, but then there are alot that aren't.

I currently alternate between a Palm Tungsten E and an ASUS MyPal a600 because I can't seem to let go of my old Palm.  It's an inferior machine in a number of ways, but it still does alot of things that my trusty Pocket PC doesn't do, or at least that I haven't figured out how to do yet!

I've always been a Palm guy, and I still like Palm, but it looks like they are being edged out by the Windows machines- Bill Gates isn't really into sharing markets.  Of course I have found that my Palm syncs better and easier with my desktop than my Pocket PC does, which I thought was funny.

I've mostly stuck to Palms, having had a Palm IIIe, m-125 and the Tungsten E, but I've also owned a CLIE and was quite pleased with that.  It didn't last all that long with me though as everything else I have takes SD cards, and the CLIE, being a Sony product, takes Sony memory sticks only.  My mp3 players, Palms, PPC, digital cameras etc all take SD cards.  I refuse to buy anything that doesn't, but the CLIE was a gift, and such a darned good machine I couldn't turn it away.

What PDA (if any) do you like or use?
Def

[665ae]

I've had a Palm III, IIIc, and a Tungsten T.  I absolutely loved the Tungsten T.  The small size was great.  It just died a couple months ago after a lot of hard use, and I haven't replaced it yet...

[Grant Lamontagne]

Any ideas about what you think might replace it?  Gonna make the jump to Pocket PC or stick with Palm?  I like the Palm OS better but I don't like that it's on it's way down, or that the LifeDrive is the only model they really have left.  Such a waste really.
Def

[665ae]

I've been seriously considering picking up another T series (T2 or T3) off of ebay.  The problem is that I mainly just used it to keep track of my bank accounts.  I can't really justify that much money for something that will only be "an electronic checkbook"

[Fred]

The T3 is a great unit.I use mine all the time and the expanding screen is great for watching movies at the doctor's office!

[eodtech]

I'm sticking with the  PocketMod  a free PDA !!!

[J-sews]

I'm sticking with the  PocketMod  a free PDA !!!

......and the batteries almost never go dead on you. I love it!

[damota]

I use a Palm T3. I have had a MS machine and used to have Psions (anyone remember those). IMO Palm wins every time they have always synchronized the easiest. I also had a MS smart phone that was just as bad while the treo is a lot better. When/if this one I am after a T/X.

Dave

[tstetz]

Well, I've been using my Tapwave Zodiac for a few years now and been pretty happy with it. I think my battery is getting gimpy with old age though and now that tapwave went under I dunno even know if I can get a new one.

Might be time to look for something new!!

[Grant Lamontagne]

Check out www.gethightech.com for parts for almost any Palm based PDA...

Def

[tstetz]

Thanks Def! I'll check that out.

[bmot]

Hmmm... Funny, reading this back in the age of smartphones and tablets 

[ducttapetech]

Yeah, was just a matter of time when the pda and the cell phone was going to get combine to make a smartphone.

sent from Nate's mobile

[Grant Lamontagne]

Man, I haven't thought about my old PDA's in a while.  The only reason I ended up making the jump to a smartphone was because my last PDA (iPAQ)was dying and it was cheaper to get a smartphone (hardware upgrade through the phone company) than it was to get a new PDA. 

Def

[16VGTIDave]

Every once in a while I put batteries in my old Newton 2100 just to remind myself how little progress has actually been made in the past 15 years of portable technology. Despite all the hype from the marketing geniuses. In some ways, the technology has even gone backwards. These days, 'features' and 'specifications' seem to be more important than 'functionality' or 'productivity'. Battery life is now measured in hours when it used to be days. Device sizes are increasing again as people have re-learned that tiny screens are harder to use than a larger screen. CPU's are now clocking in the GHz, but other than for playing games, who cares? I can't type a message or make a calendar entry any faster today than I could back when a 300 MHz CPU was considered cutting edge. But I can watch the battery indicator drop.

New isn't always better.

[Syph007]

I had lots back in the day. Started with a palm IIIx which I still have.  I paid my tuition to university by selling software for that, and the pocket pc's later on.  I still have most of them, and the old ones are funny.  I'll take them out for a photo shoot sometime for laughs.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I hear you Dave- my first PDA would last a week or so on a couple of AAA batteries.  The color screens came along and put an end to that!

Re-reading this thread reminded me that part of the reason I went for an all in one device (smartphone) was  so that I wouldn't have to carry around more than one device.  Nowadays I carry around a smartphone and a tablet, most of which duplicate eachother's functions, except for the one major thing each excels at- large screen and making phone calls.  My next phone will be a phablet so I can get back to carrying only one device.

Def

[kkokkolis]

I had many PDAs since 1999 (very rare in Greece then). Best of the best were the Palm Vx and the Sony Clie TH55. After the PalmOS I used a HP PPC. It was a step back but I had no options.
Then my EDC was a PDA, a HDD MPEG4 player (iRiver or Archos), a DSC (Sony) a mobile (Siemens or Sony Ericsson) and a portable HDD (WD Caviar), not to mention memory cards etc. Bow it's just my iPhone (and HDD) that I don't love but saves me space for SAKs and MTs.

[microbe]

I think I jumped ship around 2007 from a Toshiba e330 ppc to a htc Artemis smartphone. both ran on WinMo5 at the time, but for the ppc I needed an external USB SiRFstar GPS receiver, and on the Artemis the GPS receiver came built in. I tossed the ppc some years ago in a move, but that Artemis still is somewhere in a box in the basement.

[Cupboard]

I got a PDA in 2003, the Dell Axim X5. It was a beast. Got a WinMo smartphone in 2008 (HTC Touch Diamond) then moved to Android after that.

The HTC had a "retina display" before they were cool 

[PTRSAK]

I had a Casio pocket computer back even before PDA's. Then I had another Casio, "Electronic Organizer" which worked for me until I made the jump to a Palm III. woohoo what a beast!
For some reason I was tempted by the dark side and embarked on a series of Windoze based pocketPCs the peak of which being the IPAQ HX4700. A touchscreen device with a trackpad  designed by a committee?

Sold the HX4700 while it was still worth something, but I still have my old IPAQ RX5965  Travel Companion sitting in the box on a shelf in my junk room. It cost me nearly $600 when I bought it. Last one I saw on eBay went for $15.

Was a pretty cool piece of kit too. had GPS with TomTom built in and everything.
Think I'll get it out and see if the battery will still charge.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I had a pocket computer at one point too. I can't remember the model but it was a tiny little laptop about the size of a glasses case.  I only had it a week or so before my dog knocked it out of my pocket and cracked the touch screen.

Def

Sent from a digital multitool

[Syph007]

The weirdest one I had was a clam shell type, HP Jornada.



Oh also I remember paying $200 for a 64 MB MMC card back then....

[Chako]

I had an original Palm when they first came out in the late 90s. which got upgraded to a Sony Clie which I used for work back in 2000/2001. I even bought the productivity suite and folding keyboard.

This thread has brought back a lot of memories, and long dead platforms.

[Syph007]

Ok Im going to dig out my PDAs after dinner for a photo shoot, I wonder if they still work.   I rember the palm screen was 160 by 160 pixels!

[Grant Lamontagne]

I wish I had one as advanced as that Jornada. Mine was a monochrome LCD screen. I bought it at a pawn shop and it came with a 16mb Compact Flash card. The guy looking at car stereos just about pooped himself when he saw it. As it turns out he worked for HP and told me the card alone was worth $100, which is what the shop wanted for the unit and card together, so I snagged it.

Def

Sent from a digital multitool

[Cupboard]

oooh, I'd forgotten the keyboard I had with mine. That was great! It was a little thing, about the size of the PDA but thinner. Unfold it and it turned in to a remarkably nice laptop sized keypad that had a little dock for the PDA in the top of it.

[AlephZero]

Gotta find my Palm T|X, I know it's somewhere here...

[Chako]

I gave all of mine away when I saw the PDA market disappear.

[SteveP]

Blame Grant for leading me here as he posted a link in the current "Remember, remember the FIRST of SAKtember!" thread.

I'm not ashamed to say that I still carry a Tungsten C. For integration between contacts, notes, calendar events, and to dos, nothing out there now can touch it.

I started out with TI Avigo, before switching to a Palm IIIx, then a IIIc, a Zire 71, then the TC. I picked up a Tungsten X, but it was slow compared with the C.

Here's a pic of my collection...