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Poll: Do you use a Palm or PocketPC variant?

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yea i wouldnt mind having a laptop but it is a lot of bulk to have on me. plus i couldnt get away wit a laptop at school like i can with a pda especially with the wifi in most of my school. the main appeal for me is the form factor. its nice to have that kinda functionality and be able to fit in my pocket.
 
>I'm trying to find something under $200 that will fit my needs:
>[...]
>But for now, really the only thing I'd do with it is on-the-go web page reading and scheduling.

I've had several PPCs in the past and currently have a Zaurus SL-C760 (which is admittedly way out of your league). Anyway, my advice would be to make sure you stop by one of those big stores that have many models that you can play with rather than decide by specs alone. Personally I would get the best screen possible and consider everything else secondary. Now that I have a 480x640 screen I'm never going back...

>But footbal07, for flights and stuff, wouldn't a laptop be more convenient and powerful for you?

Well as for myself I get tons of use out of my PDA doing emu, videos, and books on the subway, bus, class (both waiting for and sometimes during - once a CS prof. actually complained, but then I showed him I was reading the O'Reilly XML Bookshelf so it was OK after that, heh), and waiting in lines, etc even though I have a laptop. I actually don't like bringing my laptop around because it risks the HDs dying (which has happened several times) and because it can get stolen when you put it down for a while (which has also happened). Like football said, a PDA fits in your pocket.

Oh, if you do try video make sure you try MPEG2 before going MPEG4. The former is *much* easier to decode so you can pump the bitrate higher and end up with higher quality. MPEG4 is more for people who need to conserve space rather than those that care about quality in the PDA world. If you have a capture card for your PC you can get software to auto-record shows, this is pretty much the only way I have time to watch TV and keep up with what my friends are watching anymore.
 
Yeah, the features sound incredibly enticing and want to make me buy one just to play with them. Watching TV shows, movies, music, BOOKS, stored pages from forums and articles from AT, games...so many possibilities in a box that can fit in your pocket.

But I shouldn't waste my money. I'm always either at school, work, my g/f's house, or a friend's house. At none of those locations could I actually use it (except for maybe work, which I could try if I had one, but wouldn't buy it just for that). As far as being en route goes, I drive most places myself, never take buses/subways, etc. So really not too many opportunities to use one.

But as I said, I want to play with them...heh.
 
The lack of hands free time to actually use them is actually why some people are predicting video walkman like devices, like the PSP, will never catch on. Personally I live in a city and think people who drives cars are the weird ones. You'd have to be crazy to risk crashing every day if you could take the bus instead (which can crash, but you don't have to pay for it and it's more massive so it takes a hit better). Wonder how long until the population of cities overcomes the other areas, probably has already happened if you count the suburbs.
 
Seems Palm is catching ground on PPC.

Can anyone explain to me the internet side of all this? I'm still kind of unclear on it. Do providers offer data plans with a monthly fee for handhelds? Do they allow you to access any website or just specialized ones made to viewed on a handheld? Is that the same kind of web plan you'd get with a cell phone or do they differ? Finally, I heard people mention stuff about using bluetooth phones with web access to get access on their handheld or laptop? How does that work?

Hmm I think those're all my questions. 🙂
 
Didn't see Linux as an option. I use a Sharp Zaurus, although I have used both Windows CE (and later, Pocket PC) and PalmOS previously.
 
Originally posted by: archcommus87
Seems Palm is catching ground on PPC.

Can anyone explain to me the internet side of all this? I'm still kind of unclear on it. Do providers offer data plans with a monthly fee for handhelds? Do they allow you to access any website or just specialized ones made to viewed on a handheld? Is that the same kind of web plan you'd get with a cell phone or do they differ? Finally, I heard people mention stuff about using bluetooth phones with web access to get access on their handheld or laptop? How does that work?

Hmm I think those're all my questions. 🙂
Click to expand...

Well it depends on your PDA and internet provider. Lets start with the basics

1) No wireless of any kind (PPC & Palm): Your only choice is services like AvantGo that let you download mobile web sites for free. There are other programs you can get that let you view webpages offline as well.

2)Wifi Equiped PDA (Palm Most OS 5.0 Sonys, Tungsten C, etc: PPC Ipaq 4150, 4350, etc ): Basically this option is the same as a laptop. If you have an access point at home you use it same as your laptop. Palms generally use the WebPro or Netfront browsers which are pretty good. PPC use Pocket IE. None of these are as good as a full PC browser but some are getting close. Folks at 1src.com use their Sonys or T3s to actually post in the forums so that should give some idea what the browsers can do. I would recommend getting a Palm OS pda with 320x480 screen or a PPC with a 640x480 screen as the higher res the screen the better the surfing experience.

3) GSM/CDMA Equiped PDAs (Palm Treo 600, etc; PPC XDA, etc) You surf using your phone connection and use one of the browsers I mentioned above. Sprint charges about $15 a month for this service.

4) Bluetooth equiped PDAs (Palm Tungsten3, Sony UX50; PPC Ipag 2215, 4150, etc) You must have a bluetooth equipped phone for this to work. You use the phone as a modem to connect to the internet through your phone provider. You then use the bluetooth connection between the phone and the pda to surf on the pda. Charges vary by phone provider. Bluetooth is a short range wireless link similar to Wifi but slower and much lower power, (still alot faster than any phone to internet connection). Think of it as wirelless USB.

Hope this helps

Paratus
 
That does help, thanks a lot.

When you use option 3, is it just basic internet stuff that you can on a cellphone, like news, movie times, etc? Or is it full-blown internet?

And I'm guessing option 4 is, of course, full blown internet.

So what's the difference between getting a GSM/CDMA plan STRAIGHT to your handheld, versus getting the plan for you bluetooth cell phone and then hooking it up wirelessly to your handheld?
 
Originally posted by: archcommus87
That does help, thanks a lot.

When you use option 3, is it just basic internet stuff that you can on a cellphone, like news, movie times, etc? Or is it full-blown internet?

And I'm guessing option 4 is, of course, full blown internet.

So what's the difference between getting a GSM/CDMA plan STRAIGHT to your handheld, versus getting the plan for you bluetooth cell phone and then hooking it up wirelessly to your handheld?
Click to expand...

It's full blown internet for either if you can configure everything correctly. I don't currently have either type of PDA but I know that for Sprint if you have Vision service you can surf all you want but if you can manage to find their one and only bluetooth phone they restrict you to only 3mb of data transfer a month before charging you by the kb. ATT and some of the other GMS providers are more reasonable. Sprint is mainly worried about folks using their phones as their primary internet connection and downloading GBs of MP3s a month.
 
Well of course browsing normal web pages with the phone itself would be sort of silly, and stupid.

So you can use BASIC internet phone-formatted sites on your phone, and you can do full web browsing, for instance the forums, on your handheld, either through a provider directly to the handheld or through your phone, and then hooking it up via USB.

I think I have that right...lol.

Now, if you can get a dial-up speed GSM/CDMA internet plan for your handheld, why can't you for a laptop? Why is the only way to get access on your laptop anywhere in world through your phone?
 
>Why is the only way to get access on your laptop anywhere in world through your phone?

That's not true at all, I've seen several services that are just a PC card. I despise cell phones and refuse to use anything, but a beeper, so these came up as possible answers when I needed to access work from a remote location once. Here's Verizon's:
http://www.verizonwireless.com...tionalaccess/index.jsp
 
I like My Palm Tungsten E. I'm a truck driver and I don't time for many games. I just use it for Maps, MP3's, Photo viewer, and the address book. So, I didn't need all that power of the more expensive ones. What I do like about this one over the older palms, is that the handwriting recoginition is so much better.
 
Originally posted by: sunase
>Why is the only way to get access on your laptop anywhere in world through your phone?

That's not true at all, I've seen several services that are just a PC card. I despise cell phones and refuse to use anything, but a beeper, so these came up as possible answers when I needed to access work from a remote location once. Here's Verizon's:
http://www.verizonwireless.com...tionalaccess/index.jsp
Click to expand...
I saw the PC card on their Products page, didn't know what it was for.

That's crazy, all this time I thought the only way to get online with a laptop is to either be in a network (like, your own home network, wired or wireless), or from a WiFi spot.

56K-speed internet where ever in the world you want......wow I like that idea.
 
What brand and type of antenna do you use for your Sony Clie TJ37? I'm trying to find an GPS antenna for my TJ37 but I haven't found any yet.
 
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