An essential procedure with a PDA is this:

Install the software you need
Verify it all works
Restart the unit
Run the Backup program and make a backup to an SD/CF card (this will be 10MB-50MB according to how much software you have loaded)

and then when the battery is found to be flat (or when something has stopped working for no apparent reason, which can be quite often) you can just restore the backup.

The PDA market is reportedly declining year on year. Perhaps tablets are taking out some of it; they are getting smaller and WinXP is a whole lot more reliable than Pocket/PC. The downside of tablets is that a hard drive stops working at about FL140 (it crashes). The fancy mobile phones will also be taking out a chunk; a decent phone can do everything which a typical exec is doing with a PDA.

A really nice PDA I saw recently is the IMate JasJar. It still uses Pocket/PC so the above comments will apply, but the build quality appears solid, it has a fold-up keyboard, a 640x480 display, and built-in GPRS. If I was getting a PDA again I would get that one.

Still not impressed with Dell's customer service, but have ordered an Axim.

Top tip is not to buy flash memory from them, £140+ for a 2Gb SD card when they are less than £25 from 7day shop and 50 euoros in my local supermarket!!!

Think I saw in the last few days (I stilll have the Times somewhere) that the Axim X51V (624Mhz) is on offer again at £259. Bargain. If they have sold it to you for more, PM me today and I will dig the ad out for you.
Conan

Conan,

Thanks, but I did get it at the Special Offer price which is even lower than your quote (I asume that is £259 with VAT?), before VAT. If people want an Axim51v 624 now is the time to buy.

Happy with that one. Good result.

Conan

Having a main flat battery on most modern PDA's be then PalmOS or WM5 powered is not a issue today. As these devices now have backup batteries that maintain.
Also if you intend to use WiFi extensively then choose a device which allows you to swap batteries, as WiFi is very power hungry.
If you're bothered about applications mysterioulsy failing to run, then with the cost of large memory cards (miniSD,SD,CF) plummeting. Just purchase a large card, say 2Gb and either keep the applications installers (CAB files, prc files etc) on this card or as previously suggested use a back up solution to back up the current state to the card. I have found both SpriteBackup for WM5 and BackUpBuddy for PalmOS invaluable.
Michael

I've had problems with the backup battery on two O2 XDA IIi PDAs.
On both occasions when removing the main battery to insert a different SIM card they've lost all RAM data.
Internal battery should provide 20 min power.

The backup facility on the ActiveSync link doesn't work properly - when I queried this with tech support they said "Oh that doesn't work very well."

O2 have just really p1$$ed me off by being obstructive when asked for an unlocking code so that I could use an Australian Vodaphone SIM for a month.
Unlocked it myself in the end.

I use a Palm Treo. It works for me because I wanted the main functions of a PDA, i.e calendar, contacts etc plus Bluetooth and MS applications like excel with something that I could realistically use as a phone aswell.

I get all the benefits of a Blackberry without having two devices.

Works for me.

Well, the Axim has a fault so Dell are going to send me new one out to swap. Can't really argue with their response especially as I bought it from Dell UK, and Dell Portugal are replacing it.