Recommendations please: Palm Vx or Psion 5?

[virgin]

Which would you recommend?
Pro's / Cons.
The Psion is a lot more bulky than the slimline Palm Vx, but does it actually do anything the Palm doesn't?
Thanks

[Iz]

Hmm I think it might just boil down to:

1. The size
2. Whether you can get used to living without a (tiny) keyboard or not

The second point, you may want to try out, some people hate text input with a stylus pen. Other than that, does the Palm V have an extra memory slot? Psion does.

[What_does_this_button_do?]

Nokia 9210 due out in June. All of the above plus it's a phone as well.

[spannersatcx]

HP Jornada 548, 32mb internal memory, word, excel, plus loads of others. Compact flash slot, comes with a free 56k modem. Just watched a video of my kids on it, excellent.

[Kirk to Enterprise]

Virgin,

I use a psion 5mx, had a 3c for years then upgraded.
It does a lot more than the palm. It’s a whole PC in your pocket. A full wordprocessor (not on palm) word compatible, full spreadsheet (not on palm) excel compatible, Internet browser (yes pprune in your pocket), E-mail, Diary (much more flexible than palm), to show just a few. Plus many useful programmes downloadable from the web.

Compact flash slot, IR modem available, battery life in weeks (average 5) not days as regularly reported on palm.

Try this page for info on psion www.btinternet.com/~andy.nott/index.htm (http://www.btinternet.com/~andy.nott/index.htm)
Or try this one to see the type of software available for both PDAs http://pda.tucows.com/epocsoft.html

Having said all that Palm is the larger org andhas captured the US market so far, Betamax?VHS? I hope not, I wouldn’t like to be without my psion.


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Kirk out

[Iz]

Ah I checked, Palm has no memory expansion. I have a Philiph Nino 200, but wouldn't recommend that to anyone, a bit outdated already.

The HP Jornada is very nice, so is the Compaq iPaq. They come with high resolution colour screens and the PocketPC version of Windows CE. It has Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook and Windows Media Player on it, it's just like a mini version of your PC. Plays MP3, video, lots of memory, expansion possible. Internet Explorer on it as well.

[Jay66UK]

The Psion is MUCH bigger - if you want a PDA to pop in a pocket, the Palm might be a better choice.

That apart, the Psion is a far more serious piece of computing. It has a slide out keyboard that you can just about touch type on (unless you have huge hands); it has a much bigger display; it can use generic compactflash card memory (32mb for around UKP45); it comes with its own programing language so you could easily develop your own Apps; the word processor outputs MS Word compatible files; you can get handwriting recognition software if you want to use this in preference to the keyboard (Allegro).

If you are carrying a small bag with you, the Psion will not be noticed. I used to use mine in preference to lugging my laptop around.

jay


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Jason Good
[email protected]

[ACARS]

Virgin

If you have the cash, go for the Compaq Ipaq 3600 series. They have a 32MB and a 64M version. The latter should keep you going for a year or so. 32MB surfices for me, however you are limited to storage space. I can store two or three good movie clips at time.

Wireless internet is around the corner. Ipaq with its colout TFT screen would be best for this I believe.

[static]

Virgin,

Go for the palm. It`s the only one that actually does fit in your pocket.
If you buy the new m505 model, you get a color screen (not available on psion), a memory expansion slot, word and excel compatable programs that let you edit and sync with your pc. And if you really want a keyboard, buy the GoType keyboard for $89,-, it`s a real-size keyboard, except you don`t have to carry it around all the time as with psion.
A last thing: there are literally thousands of palm programs available, against maybe a hundred psion programs. Palm is the standard.

[Captain Gidday]

If you get a Palm Portable Keyboard to go with your Vx [an amazingingly engineered full sized keyboard which folds away into one quarter of the size] and a copy of Wordsmith (http://pdasquare.com/reviews/palm/wordsmith/), you will have a very functional and practical little word processing device which will link very easily with a PC.

[CrashDive]

(Imho) I've got to agree with 'What_does_this_button_do', i.e. I too am waiting for the Nokia 9210 (http://www.nokia.com/phones/9210/index.html) to hit the shops, and just as soon as it does I'll be in there for one.

I'll admit that it's maybe not quite as slim as some of the other PDA's on the market but it does do everything you'd really like a PDA to do (e.g. see Technical Specs (http://www.nokia.com/phones/9210/specifications.html) ), as well as having a built-in keyboard and, of course, a phone !

http://www.nokia.com/press/photo/phones/jpeg/9210_09.jpg

[This message has been edited by CrashDive (edited 20 May 2001).]

[johntrav69]

One problem with the Nokia - how do you use it in an aeroplane as its a phone as well??

The Palm has by far the most software, why not look at some of the websites that supply shareware for the Palm and compare. http://www.palmgear.com/

[Devils Advocate]

Thus perhaps somewhat of a balancing act between how much time one spends between flying the aircraft and using ones PDA ?

E.g. About 25 / 75 - not that I'd ever actually admit to it.... Oh bugger, I just did ! :)