I was in a similar situation a few weeks ago.
For the price I went for the SONY CLie SJ30.
Can do email, word doc's etc..and an excellent Hi Res colour display, good for pictures!
Palm 4 OS. You can transfer dos'c via a memory stick
or hot sync which I have done once. 16MB DRAM
Was a very good replacement for my old palm and feels more sturdy than the I-paq.
I went to PC World to compare and play around with each before
I forked out the cash. I paid £199 at PC world.
Only thing I did not like is that it does not have a Hot Sync cradle
like my old palm. But it really is just as easy, instead of placing it in the Hot Sync cradle you just plug it in with a single
adapter and it does the same thing. I was going to pay extra and order the cradle from the Sony website, but there really is no need.
I know it was not comparing the Palm to the I-paq, but thought it might give you a different (maybe cheaper)option if you wanted