What's the story on PDAs these days? My wife and I are both looking for a new PDA. It should not be a phone, should be under $300 and have WiFi. prefer slim and pocketable over fat and feature rich.

I've used a couple of black and white palms in the past and liked them - mostly a handspring visor, and my wife used an iPaq when she was an undergrad.

we both use google calendar for scheduling now, though we have outlook (and gcal syncs with outlook though we haven't played with that) and she claims that continuing to use Gcal (and gmail) is a must. I use both, but could do without - reason for gmail is that it's accessible, but then again the reason for a PDA is its accessibility.

So I'm looking at the palm TX and the asus a626. Looks like HP is just about to come out with some new iPaqs, but all the iPaqs seem pricy. can anyone comment on these or suggest another or discuss why palm OS or pocket pc OS would be better?

9/19/2007 9:55:17 AM

iPod touch?

9/19/2007 11:10:20 AM

if you don't want to add your own apps, may as well get an ipod touch at that pricepoint

9/19/2007 11:21:22 AM

Slim and good battery life means a palm device. Palm TX.

But you might be able to get away with using an iPod Touch.

9/19/2007 2:14:03 PM

any idea if you can run skype (via wifi) on the tx and connect a headset/mic via bluetooth?

also, the palm site didn't specify...is the tx bluetooth stereo? apparently, it's hackable-ish using software

when does cobalt come out?

[Edited on September 19, 2007 at 2:39 PM. Reason : .]

9/19/2007 2:30:37 PM

SDK for the iPhone and iPod touch came out a week or so ago.

9/19/2007 3:39:17 PM

Quote :

"if you don't want to add your own apps, may as well get an ipod touch at that pricepoint"

It's tempting, but the built in apps for pocket pc and palm are good and I'm not sure we'd have to step far beyond those to get everything we need done. Otoh, those 3rd party programs add up fast.

With no macs in the house, is the iPod touch going to be useful?

and then there's stuff like this:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/10/apple-confirms-ipod-touch-cannot-add-appointments/

so I think its a case of you pay for the 8gb and the smooth design, or you pay for purpose built hardware and software...

still, hard to shell out $300 for a pda that came out 4 years ago.

9/19/2007 5:34:31 PM

i still dont understand why someone would want to carry a pda, and a phone.

9/19/2007 8:16:53 PM

-two things each do their job better than one trying to do both?

but really, economics: a treo takes a $60/month plan, which is almost double what I have now. that adds up fast.

9/19/2007 9:40:23 PM

not always true, two devices aren't necessarily better than one.

and, if you straight out buy a treo, assuming you have cingular/at&t, you can just stick your sim card in it and it'll work, no need to pay for their bullshit plan that charges more for having a treo.

9/19/2007 9:50:20 PM

I have a cingular 8125 that I bought outright, they're like $100 now. WM5, wifi, bluetooth, full keyboard, full touch screen, and a phone. to get a phone this useful however, you'll need a gsm carrier. otherwise you're stuck with a Q.

9/19/2007 10:06:20 PM

^^ Didn't mean to generalize, but I think that's the case at least for my preference here - and I really prefer writing with the stylus to the blackberry style keys. (and the money is even bigger than I thought, I realize that I either have to pay a lot to change phones and carriers or pay even more to get a verizon smartphone and double my cell phone bill.)

^that htc looks nice.

the Q has no touchscreen, right?

9/19/2007 10:45:06 PM

Buy a used Axim or iPaq until UPMC's become a bit more reasonable. This is sort of a dead period of the standalone PDA... so much focus on a phone integrated unit and business focus.

9/20/2007 1:07:53 AM

Quote :

"I have a cingular 8125 that I bought outright, they're like $100 now. WM5, wifi, bluetooth, full keyboard, full touch screen, and a phone. to get a phone this useful however, you'll need a gsm carrier. otherwise you're stuck with a Q."

not true...sprint, verizon, and alltel all carry the htc 6800 (called mogul for spring and i can't remember what for verizon)

9/20/2007 9:03:33 AM

goto mytreo.net/forums and goto the 755p forum. they compare the mogul and the newest 755p.

the treo 500 just came out for sprint. so 755p isnt really the newest (they came out within like 2-3 months of each other)

goto the sprint store and test drive each one.

9/20/2007 9:09:24 AM

^ it's a good idea to read reviews on comparisons - but rarely is it a good idea to get it from a website dedicated to one of the 2 devices you are comparing

9/20/2007 9:15:06 AM

http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/compare.php?id%5B%5D=1188&id%5B%5D=1142&id%5B%5D=&id%5B%5D=&id%5B%5D=

the blackberry 8830 world edition is both GSM and CDMA...i look forward to the days when all phones work on both networks

http://www.alltel.com/phones/blackberry/8830.html

[Edited on September 20, 2007 at 9:20 AM. Reason : .]

9/20/2007 9:15:49 AM