New PDA Choice

[stillin1]

Psion - RIP
Dearest Knowledgable ones.
For a sensible cost! (about £250 - £350) what would you recommend as a replacement for the dear old dead psion mx5?:{

[anothermushroom]

Just bought a Dell Axim x50v, very pleased with it. Has 640x480 vga screen, built in wifi and bluetooth, both SD card and Compact Flash expansion slots and ships with Microsoft Pocket PC 2003. Top end of your budget though, around £340 from Dell UK (http://www.dell.co.uk)

Review can be found here :
http://www.pdagold.com/articles/detail.asp?a=222

[Background Noise]

Got an ipaq 2210. It too has SD and CF slots and MSPPC2003, BT and IR but no wifi. Cost around £200.

[FunkyMunky]

Picked up a rebranded Mitac Mio 168 for £200 recently; Not the most powerful machine and no BT/wifi, but it comes with Windows Mobile 2003 and has a built-in GPS reciever, handy for in the car or when using PocketFMS. Supports SDIO via the SD/MMC slot and I picked up a sandisk SDIO wifi-card for £27 quid.

For sheer power and screen clarity however, as well as lots of connectivity, you really can't beat the Axim mentioned above.

[Background Noise]

Does your mio have co-pilot software? I've read good things about it - any good?

[FunkyMunky]

BN,

My Mio unfortunately did not come with the "Co-Pilot" software. I recieved "Medion Navigator" software with European maps, which to be honest I never really use. It does the job ok (clear, loud speech, very readable and good street data) and pretty accurately, but I was only looking for a reasonably accurate GPS reciever to use with Pocket FMS. The reciever itself is built into the back and flips up, with a connector for an optional antenna.

There seem to be rather a lot of Mio 168 clones doing the rounds; There was the OEM Mitac version, with "Mio Map" software, and the Medion version I have. All versions seem to have the same windscreen suction mount, car adaptor, bike mount, power cable and screen covers. Mines came with a dock instead of just a sync cable, I'm not sure about the other ones.
If you're looking for one preloaded with CoPilot, try this one (http://www.lowestonweb.com/Products/DisplayInfoMain.asp?e=A152ACBE-AF02-4221-AF21-09EF44720757) from Evesham. It was a lot more expensive than mine however, but from reviews I've seen, the CoPilot software should be worth it.

[Basil]

Just ordered an upgrade from O2 to Xda IIi.
The cost varies from £0 to £200 depending on your use history - the more you've spent on calls the less it costs. Initially they asked me for £200 but after speaking to Customer Retention and threatening to leave it came down to £100.

Tri-band Phone/PDA - GPRS - Bluetooth - WiFi - 1.3Mp camera.
Believe the screen is 320x240.
In addition to Excel & Internet I want to use it with Tom Tom Bluetooth / Traffic (GPRS)

The Xda IIs offered at the same price has a Quad-band phone (850), only 0.3Mp camera but a qwerty keyboard which I found impossible to use without the stylus (Shrekfingers) so may as well just use the on-screen keyboard. Less memory & slower CPU.

Haven't rcvd the machine yet so no idea how it will work in practice. Suspect the Psion 3a screen and abilities will be missed.