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Recommend a good PDA for around $300

M

mooojojojo

Senior member
Hi, can you guys recommend me a good PDA for around $300 comparable in features to the Sharp Zaurus SL5500. I think I'm leaning towards Pocket PC or Linux (if there actually are others besides the Zaurus which use Linux), but no PalmOS.
 
Axim X3i when dell has deals. About 5 hrs batterly life with the wifi off (or double that if you buy the high-capacity battery, but it's another $99), great display, small & light for a Pocket PC.
 
Thanks guys. Keep them coming. 🙂 Actually I'm not asking for myself, but for my brother - he is looking and wanted some opinions on what's good out there.

I guess on the feature side from those that Ionizer mentioned, maybe the SD card and movies are not a great concern. Perhaps it can't be the smallest there is for this price, but I hope it's not a brick either..
 
Most PDA's have SD but not all have CF. From this take, I guess that he only needs one slot and a decent size. Some recommendations are:

iPaq 1935/45 ($199/299): SD slot, very small form factor, decent battery, WM2003, bluetooth (on the 1945)

Tungsten E: nice Palm PDA for the money. Small, SD, mp3, overall a good PDA

Axim X3 (basic/advanced): small, SD slot, WM2003.

If he needs just CF and not SD, the only PDA I can think of with that is the Asus Mypal A620.
 
Dell Axim X3 300MHZ- $200, add 256mb SD and wireless LAN, and you should be alittle over $300.🙂
 
So I asked him for more specs and here is what I got:
He actually does need SD. The whole range of specs he mentioned - CF, SD, more than 64MB (I suppose integrated), WiFi and Bluetooth. If the PDA is available on newegg.com - the better. Sorry I'm not a lazy ass - I'm off right now to look it up too, but any real user impressions would be nice. Thanks!
 
Does he need the CF for anything besides wifi? If not, the Axim X3i with built-in wifi (and SD but not CF) is still a good choice. 64 MB RAM is the standard maximum for PDAs, there might be one model with more but insisting on over 64 is silly IMHO, that's what the SD slot is for.
 
Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Does he need the CF for anything besides wifi? If not, the Axim X3i with built-in wifi (and SD but not CF) is still a good choice. 64 MB RAM is the standard maximum for PDAs, there might be one model with more but insisting on over 64 is silly IMHO, that's what the SD slot is for.
Click to expand...
Yes, you're right about the 64MB - all the PDAs on newegg.com have that maximum. He didn't insist, just mentioned it.
Axim - that's a Dell right? Any idea how a similarly equipped Dell would stack quality/size/price-wise against the iPaq H4155 (400MHz, 64MB, 320x480, WiFi, Bluetooth, IrDA, SD/MMC card slot)?
 
Yep, Dell. The Axim X3i has all of that except bluetooth for about $300 - $350 depending on if there's a sale this week. Mine cost $296 a couple of weeks ago, you might also find Dell coupons through the Hot Deals forum or RossMAN's www.GottaDeal.com

There is supposed to be a model coming out with bluetooth added, not sure when.
 
One thing strikes me as odd.
Newegg says the HP H4155 has a 320x480px screen, while the Dell Axim is 320x240? HP.com doesn't list any detailed screen specs.. is the information on Newegg acurate?
 
Originally posted by: mooojojojo
One thing strikes me as odd.
Newegg says the HP H4155 has a 320x480px screen, while the Dell Axim is 320x240? HP.com doesn't list any detailed screen specs.. is the information on Newegg acurate?
Click to expand...

Newegg is wrong.
 
Originally posted by: Jumpem
Originally posted by: mooojojojo
One thing strikes me as odd.
Newegg says the HP H4155 has a 320x480px screen, while the Dell Axim is 320x240? HP.com doesn't list any detailed screen specs.. is the information on Newegg acurate?
Click to expand...

Newegg is wrong.
Click to expand...
So what is the correct resolution? 240x320 for the H4155 aswell?
 
$300 for a PDA with all those features isn't happening. Here's some semi-viable ideas though.

Toshiba Genio 550G (on sale for $199, $169 after coupon at OfficeMax). Toss in CF wifi card ($30) and bluetooth card (which may be a lot more costly)

4155: Has everything but CF, but it's quite costly.

Toshiba e740: (Yes this model is quite buggy etc, but it's not too costly). Used from Ebay ~$230: has SD, CF, wifi. Toss in bluetooth card.

Do be sure to ask him why he wants/needs bluetooth. It's not that commonly used unless you want to do a hookup to your phone, which you can also accomplish via a cable.
 
Ionizer, thanks for the input.

I decided to send him a side by side comparison of the HP H4155 (which is indeed more like $400 instead of $300 but whatever) and the Dell Axim X3i (which doesn't have bluetooth).

Anyway - I was still wondering about the resolution and mwave.com also lists the H4155 as a 320x480 resolution device, but then I checked the review at shopper.cnet.com where it's clearly stated that it is indeed 240x320 so I guess I shouldn't look too much into that. But it makes HP look bad in my eyes for not stating clearly the resolution on the PDA.

Let me ask another question. How big a role does the ROM size play? I'm asking this because the Axim X3i has 64MB ROM against a 32MB ROM on the iPaq H4155. And the Dell is cheaper by ~$70 to boot.
 
I have both pocketPC and palm, I will take Palm OS over MS OS any days of the week. They're just so much easier to use. If you don't need anything fansy, Palm V have VERY VERY good battery life(10+hrs), or newer Palm E and Zire 71 were good and cheap.
 
The rom size should in theory let you update your OS more easily when MS releases new versions, but in practice, it's not very useful. Companies such as (*cough* Toshiba) have decided not to let e740, e550g, and e335 users to upgrade to WM2003 despite the large 32MB rom.

Roms are useful, however, when you can use them as a storage disk. EG on the Axim X5, the 2002 OS uses about 29MB of ROM. The remaining 19MB of rom can be used as non-volatile memory to store important things upon.

On the 4155: the res is 320x240. The only VGA screen is that of the Toshiba e805.
 
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