you make the case to me pocket pc vs palm

[EvanAdams]

k I have $400 for a pda -- dont wory about cost of accessories (gps, wifi etc..)

make the case for which kind AND model to choose

I am a law student
I am traveling to Europe for 4 months (jan-may)
I use netstumbler (open to a palm alternative)
I work in politics
I use a Win XP machine at home, a mac is a possible portable in the immediate future.

I know I want small formfactor, if no small formfactor then I want a thumb keyboard.

I DO NOT WANT A blackberry or a psion

If you can, please recomend good software. aka travel software, translation software, calorie counters, games, other...

This is real important to me and I would appreciate dozzens of replies. Even if you know just one thing I want you to say it.

 

[EvanAdams]

K other things I'm interested in after reading more about it.


mame / gameboy emulation
mp3 playback
Interchangeability of digital camera memory (compact flash and smc)
E-Books
DIVIX playback

what else do you use on yours?

 

[Alex]

i cant do any of these things on my dads palmVx but its pretty old...

 

[tallman45]

Add the ability to read pdf docs, although either one can handle that with the appropriate Adobe reader download. Which is better depends a lot on what you are most comfortable with, there is a place for both. One is Windows based the other is Palm OS based. Because one is Windows based it naturally needs a faster cpu and more memory, sound familiar ?

If you want something that feels just like your windows machine (ie: Outlook, Word, Excel etc) then Pocket PC may be for you. Maybe a trip to a store when you have time to hold each one and navigate them to get a feel of which feels best to you.

 

[EvanAdams]

yea I've used both and really dont care. At this point I'm making my decission on available software and I want to hear what people use and find usefull.

 

[WobbleWobble]

My friend who owns an older iPaq mentioned that the DocumentsToGo is nicer than the Word/Excel from a PocketPC. And that PowerPoint isn't included with PocketPCs whereas DocumentsToGo supports it and comes with Palms. Software may have been improved since though.

He was checking out my Palm Tungsten-E.

 

[Breezie]

this stuff you listed

mame / gameboy emulation
mp3 playback
Interchangeability of digital camera memory (compact flash and smc)
E-Books
DIVIX playback


is definitely pocket pc- Dell Axim X5 does all of the above and is around 300- use the extra money to buy extra Compact Flash Wireless Card for internet, SD card for storage, and another CF card for extra storage- the Ebooks program is free and comes with PocketPC 2003, the Emulation is through a program called MorphGear- it emulates gameboy, nes, snes, gameboy advance, sega, and other stuff. There's also a Playstation emulator in development. Download a Divx player for pocketpc (you can convert 700mb divx files down to 150-200mb for pocket pc display size), and Pocketmusic for your mp3s and you're good to go. www.aximsite.com has a lot of info in their forums- Spend a bit more and get a high end HP one and it'll be faster but with $400 budget- you wont be able to by expansions.

 

[EvanAdams]

yea the $400 is just for the portable, I have plenty more for expansions. with MorphGear how does one go about roms? if thats what they are .. I'm used to nesticle.

 

[sp80]

Ive heard the new Dell PPC is good. I have the older X5 and I like it a lot. I get WiFi on it and everything. The new dell one has built in WiFI

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: evanadams
K other things I'm interested in after reading more about it.


mame / gameboy emulation
mp3 playback
Interchangeability of digital camera memory (compact flash and smc)
E-Books
DIVIX playback

what else do you use on yours?

I can do all that on my Ipaq 1910 (well only SD cards, but my digicam only uses SD cards).

 

[Breezie]

Originally posted by: evanadams
yea the $400 is just for the portable, I have plenty more for expansions. with MorphGear how does one go about roms? if thats what they are .. I'm used to nesticle.

just move the rom files (just like rom files you would use for computer emulators) from your computer to the pocketpc and run morphgear and open the rom- set your keys to whatever you want. Gameboy Advance games may run slow if your PocketPC isnt fast because I tried it on the ViewSonic Pocketpc and it didnt run nearly as fast as my Axim. You can also overclock PocketPC's (400mhz to 550mhz or 600mhz)

 

[ChefJoe]

I thought there were gameboy emulators for palm... the new tungstens can playback mp3 native, only SD cards in tungstens though. DiVX - not so sure about that one.... I think it's one of those features people think they'd like (like mp3) but realize that having a pda do that is kind of overkill.

 

[Breezie]

i thought i would use the divx movies a lot but i rarely do- i use the mp3 player a lot though and enjoy gameboy advance games now and then-

 

[EvanAdams]

k I'd love to hear more about 3rd party aplications people have bought. What do you like, what was a waste of money?

 

[Breezie]

PocketMusic is an Awesome MP3 player that beats the Windows Media player by a lot in sound quality and features. It lets you use Winamp skins and the equilizer and playlist just like winamp.

Morphgear is probably the best emulator out and the fastest too so its probably worth the money..

PocketStreets is good if you get lost a lot and if you have a GPS compact flash card- you'll probably never be lost again-

SPB Pocketplus has nice features that let you adjust the brightness of your screen, tells you how much battery life you got left, and tells you how much memory are left on your storage cards all on your today screen. It also fixes that stupid thing on PocketPC 2003 where if you click the X it doesnt close the program, it minimizes it- with SPB pocketplus- you can set it to actually close the program.

Remember to get the Acrobat Reader for pocket pc from adobe too so you can read PDF- its FREE

i learned a lot from AXIMsite.com - not only for those who have axims either- their forums are pretty cool and talk about software for all PocketPC -

be careful on the SD memory you buy to for the PocketPC because not ALL SD memory is compatible (a lot of people learn this too late)

 

[EvanAdams]

really not all sd created equal?! my cameras take sd so that is of great interest. How?

 

[SearchMaster]

Certain SD cards seem to have problems, particularly in older Axims (X5) and some iPaqs. SanDisk 256MB seems to be the biggest culprit. I have a SanDisk 128MB in my Axim and have never had any problems with it at all. I don't know if the new Axim (X3) has this problem or not, and I don't know if the problem has been addressed in newer versions of the X5.

I have an Axim X5 (bought it a week after it was released), and I love it. It still has very good battery life. I listen to MP3's regularly, and have encoded several DVDs to DivX - which is great when the kids are somewhere and need to be kept busy in certain situations. PocketMVP is the application I use for DivX and MP3s - I don't know if anything better has been introduced since, but it works great for me. It is a bit of work to convert a DVD to DivX, however, and a downloaded DivX will need to be converted to PPC format. I have heard that the new Media Player with PPC2003 is much better than the old one, so you might be able to create WMVs that work. The old Media Player couldn't keep high enough framerates to watch a full screen movie even with the most powerful PPC hardware.

I use PocketNester for NES emulation, and it works great. The games are also pretty small so you can fit thousands of them in a fairly small footprint.

 

[Ionizer86]

I think the best choice is the iPaq 2210/2215 Pocket PC. It's the lightest PPC with two slots (no SMC but it has CF and SD). It's one of hte fastest devices but it's barely over 5oz.

It'll do a wonderful job running emulation (one of the only two devices that could run SNES at autoskip 1 frame (30fps) last time I checked). Two slots means you can add tons of flash memory or you could get cool expansion cards (cf expansion cards are plentiful and usually cheap).

You could easily add a radio card, wifi card, GPS card, etc. Read up on the device more. I have to say it's one of the best PDAs out there. The Dell OTOH is much heavier (well the X5 is), and people don't like the D pad that much (directional pad for gaming).

PocketMusic is free and quite nice. It's kind of like Winamp for PPC.

For language stuff, Beiks has conjugators, MS has free dictionaries for MS Reader, and freewareppc.com has a simple translator for free.

There's many really nice looking 2D/3D games for Pocket PC.
Look at screenshots for games like:
Argentum, Buglord, and Age of Empires (RTS)
Lemonade, Simcity 2000 (simulation)
Tomb Raider (FPS)
Monopoly and Scrabble (board)
Snails (turn based strategy)
Need For Speed (Racing), and Chopper Alley (flying).
I'm sure you'll be pleased running some titles like these on the very fast 2215 PDA.

Ebooks: MS reader is preinstalled, but another good one for reading such things like *.txt books is MuReader (the greek letter). Check it out

 

[Breezie]

www.aximsite.com forum has a lot of info about the SD problem.... My suggestion is basically don't get SD made by Sandisk- if you do- make sure it's not made in Taiwan. That kinda goes for all SD cards- make sure your SD card is made in Japan for 100% compatibility-

oh yeah- that reminds me- the axim x5 has a 6-8 hour battery life while playing mp3s- higher then most old and new pocket pcs =)

 

[addragyn]

"k I have $400 for a pda -- dont wory about cost of accessories (gps, wifi etc..)
make the case for which kind AND model to choose"
** Palm Tungsten C $499 w/ a $100 rebate or get a "blemished" one from overstock.com for $339.99
-Great screen
-Great battery
-Integrated WiFi
-Good software bundle
-Thumbboard
-Fast (Intel 400MHz PXA255)
-review

I am a law student **OK
I am traveling to Europe for 4 months (jan-may) **Rubbers, rail pass, and a camera should do it
I use netstumbler (open to a palm alternative) ** NetChaser - review
I work in politics **Yay
I use a Win XP machine at home, a mac is a possible portable in the immediate future. **Palm works great on both platforms, PPC suppport is NOT built into iSync

I know I want small formfactor, if no small formfactor then I want a thumb keyboard. **Tungsten C is both

mame / gameboy emulation ** a few
mp3 playback **stupidly the 2.5mm jack on the C is mono. it will work but no stereo
Interchangeability of digital camera memory (compact flash and smc) **builtin SD/MMC slot
E-Books ** <a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.peanutpress.com//L]
DIVIX playback **C includes [L=kinoma player & producer]http://www.kinoma.com/">Pal Reader</a>


If you can, please recomend good software. aka travel software, translation software, calorie counters, games, other...
** Check out PalmGear.com


Major minuses (IMO) about the Tungsten C is no builtin Bluetooth and 2.5mm mono audio jack.