eeper
(Does that mean you were a Beeper but lost your B? 
I've progressed from the original Pilot 1000, to the Palm IIIx and am now (just) onto the the Palm IIIc. I find that it does what I want, there is a continuing roll-out of neat software (I have just installed AvantGo which downloads the latest editions of my favourite web news sites every time I hotsync the Palm). I particular like the brightness of the colour screen of the IIIc - LCD screens can be very difficult to read in bright ambient light conditions - with the IIIc you just hold the power button down for about three seconds, and a pop-up screen with a slider appears. Just draw the slider to the right with the stylus and you can read it even in the brightest ambient light (and believe me, it does get bright around here). Another benefit of the IIIc is that it uses rechargeable batteries (Lithium Ion) which are topped up every time you drop it on the cradle. Palm claim that the battery will last about 21 days away from the cradle (but I haven't tried that out yet!)
I have owned a variety of PDA's (Sharp 3000, HP100, HP200, HP700 and a Psion 3). A major challenge (problem) with all of them (except the Palm) has been synchronising and/or backing them up with one's desktop machine. The Psion in particular was a real dog when it came to communicating with any other device (which was why I sold it at the first possible opportunity). However, later versions of the Psion could well be better (I hope so!) and it certainly had a nice keyboard. I wrote some pretty neat DOS batch files to achieve synchronisation (sort of), and also the older versions of LapLink had a scripting language, but none of them come anywhere near the ease of hotsync'ing with the Palm.
One does get used to Graffiti, when you're away from your desktop, but the bulk of my input takes place on my desktop. I now rarely take my laptop with me to meetings - if I need to do any text entry while I'm out of the office, I just drop the Palm onto a keyboard (better keyboard than my Libretto), and away I go. I got the keyboard from Landware (it doesn't fold up but it doesn't take up much space in a briefcase) but there is now a foldout keyboard from Palm themselves which takes up very little space and weighs about 4 ounces.
One thing I haven't yet implemented on the Palm is e-mail, but that's more because of laziness than anything else. The latest (desktop) version of Eudora supports sync'ing to the Palm, and there is a corresponding version of Eudora that runs on the Palm (which will run stand alone quite happily). Together they amount to about 7+Mb of code, and I'm just trying to find the time to download them over a relatively slow dial-up connection. Keeping track of e-mails that you have sent and received may or may not be that important to you - it is important to me, and my desktop is the place where that happens, so I need good synchronisation between the two.
My plan is to use the Palm when away from base to answer and compose e-mails, and then send them when back at my desk. When on longer trips, I plan to use the IR port on the Palm to communicate with my cell phone and send (and receive) my mail on the run. Saves me fighting with recalitrant hotel switchboards.
I quite like the Psion, it has a really good keyboard and seems to have some quite nice software, but for me the Palm wins hands down because of the ease and cast iron reliability of the synchronisation. With something like a PDA, it hurts if you lose it, but it's a life stopper if you lose the data you have on it. And I think that the Palm is light-years ahead in that respect. Also, the Palm is far more pocketable than the Psion - just slips into an inside jacket pocket, so you'll have it with you when you need it far more often than you will the Psion (which will tend to get carried in a flight case).
It's your call - depends rather on what's important to you. I'd be interested to hear what you finally decide on.
By the way, Ericsson offer a badged version of the Psion. Probably not all that cheap, but guaranteed to work with one of their IR-enabled cell phones.
By the way #2 - for those of you that do own a Palm, there's a Real Neat occasional e-mail service with Tips and New Software. You can subscribe to called InSync (about two one page e-mails a week with some really useful stuff):
InSync Subscription
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Feline
(I Sit, I Watch, I Smile)
[This message has been edited by Feline (edited 14 September 2000).]