What to Look For When Buying a PDA?

[BRL]

Hi all. I may be buying a PDa soon but I don't know the first thing about the specs on them. How much memory should i be looking for, can you surf the internet, play MP3's, play games on them etc etc.....?

What do I look for when I go to buy one?

Will £300 be enough for a decent one?

Cheers. :)

[Telstar]

At the start I wanted one just to run a specific piece of work related database software, and looked at the most basic ones. After all I am a smart person, right? I don't need one with flashing lights, GPS recievers, a built in cell phone, wifi blue tooth.

In the end my company presented me with an iPaq Rx3715. Its a seriously handy piece of kit. The Wifi is mega handy when on the road. Instead of hauling my laptop, it gets left at home as the iPaq is more then adequate for brief internet surfing and e-mail checking, even ppruning!

The GPS is actually something I have realised that I wished I had now too. On a recnet trip to frankfurt a colleague set his up in our hire car and it took the navigation burden off and was super usefull over the few days in an unfamiliar country.

I have also seen people buying addon software so you can use it when flying, should you desire.

The ones with the cellphones would be handy if you really needed to keep in touch with e-mails away from wifi hotspots, but they are pretty expensive.

300-400 should be more then enough. I would reccomend Dell or HP. IMHO although I know a lot will bitterly disagree I would steer clear of Palms. They have a lot less software available for them compared to windows platforms. Its a bit like the Mac vs Windows debate!

[effortless]

I have an old Tosh e740. It does everything i could want. I added NavMan and a reciever to it. The Medion is cheap and comes with GPS. It does all the usual: Excell, Outlook, etc.. We bought a few of them for the minions and they work well.

[Keef]

As ever, it depends what you want to do with it.

Do you want it to be your telephone, too?

Do you want to surf the web via GPRS? If so, do you have a telephone with Bluetooth?

Most of them will play games and MP3s etc; I would do some research into the offerings available and what they will do. The market changes alarmingly rapidly!

I bought an Ipaq 5555 a couple of years ago, second hand, off Ebay. It does everything I ask of it, including browsing the web (BT to GPRS on my phone); it will connect to a WiFi access point if there's one about - but some will ask you to pay for the privilege.

I've got some enormous Excel files on it (such as the entire Churchyard records, with 4500 graves and their locations, occupants, dates and so on; my pilot's logbook; and a bunch of other stuff). It keeps my diary (very well) and my address book, and updates/synchs all of that stuff with the desktop PC and my laptop.

Only catch: I did have to buy some proprietary software for the diary because the standard offering was dreadful (it dumps appointments in certain circumstances, and had me booked to be in two different places 300 miles apart at the same time).

It's not as fast as the latest models, but hey I'm old and slow.

I used to play MP3s on it, but I recently bought myself an Ipod.

If this one popped its clogs, I'd look for another 5555 or a later equivalent.

I looked at similar kit with telephone built in, but they were clunky, in my view. I tried a Blackberry and was underwhelmed. My little Motorola V3 sits in my shirt pocket all day, and talks to the car via BT, the Ipaq via BT, and is still there when I need to make phone calls.

Edit: I bought a GPS unit to plug into it, but the 5555 doesn't have a CF slot and the GPS was CF, so that meant a caddy which made the whole thing a lot bigger. The GPS isn't that good compared with the "dedicated" land-based ones such as TomTom. I tried it with PocketFMS for aviation, and soon gave up on that, too (but we have a GNS430 in the Arrow).

I'm told by those who've tried bluetooth GPS that they aren't quite up to it yet. That may have changed recently.

[Conan the Librarian]

Bought a Dell X-51V Axim, which is quite a nimble piece of Geek toolery. Love it to death. With the Bluetooth GPS receiver, it is an excellent SatNav device and also does my music, video, diary, contacts, wireless/Bluetooth jobs etc. etc. Couple of weeks after I got mine, Dell did a special and knocked 20% off. I think they are doing that one again as we speak.... Swines!!! :}

Excellent piece of kit - I wish I had never bought the laptop. The PDA is a much more pocketable solution and does soooooo much.:ok: :ok: :ok:

Conan

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

I'm inclined to say don't buy and IPAQ. I had an IPAQ4150 and dropped it a very short distance - the screen died and the estimate was approaching £200 for repair. I cut my losses and, against all the advice in several forums, went for the IPAQ2790. Unfortunately, all the problems discussed in the forums are true! I am constantly having to soft re-set it and it is s-l-o-w compared to my old IPAQ4150. Support from HP isn't too good either..

We bought our son a MIO168 with TomTom and he never stops singing its praises...