Feline, glad to see there`s another palm-fan out there! I`ve tried the winCE things, but didn`t like it much; sold it again. Too big, needed too much batteries and not much software available.
I now have a Palm Vx. I use it for e-mail when I`m abroad (multimail pro). I have my logbook in there (palmlog from nomadtech). I have my manuals in there (documentsToGo).
The advantage over psion is that it`s smaller and lighter. When I need a keyboard I get my GoType out of the flightbag and put the palm in. I get a full size keyboard, but I don`t have to carry it around all the time.

I`m thinking of the Handspring Prism now, also because of the expansion-slot for gps and camera. Any reviews available?

Hi Folks:

I recently treated myself to a Visor Prism. One of those wonderful things you can do with a good profit-sharing cheque.

I have been using it for about a month now and I LOVE it. The colour screen is bright and clear. It is fast (33Mhz processor). The native apps like Date Book + is a great scheduling tool. I use mine for all the usual organizing stuff plus I have my logbook on it (Captain's Keeper, pricey but very versatile) I also run a program called FlybyE6B which is a quite good flight computer app.

The only concern I have is with battery life the rechargables say they have a 6-8 hour life but with heavy use and the screen set to full brightness (needed in bright sunlight) I find battery consumption quite high and until Handspring makes a travel adapter available for the Visor I have to lug around the Hotsync cradle to recharge the batteries on the road.

Anyone have any recomendations for good aviation related software for the Palm/Handspring PDAs. Mine are mentioned above.

Cheers

Canuck

Static: Yeah! I guess there are a few of us out there! Haven't seen any detailed reviews on the camera or GPS plug ins for the Prism - but there might be something on ZDNet somewhere ( <A HREF="http://www.zdnet.com" TARGET="_blank">www.zdnet.com</A> ?) A couple of warnings about plug-in cameras: firstly, they're all pretty rudimentary (fixed focus, fixed focal length, only work on nice sunlit scenes), they invariably have no flash (major limitation), and they tend to be heavy on batteries. Also, I'm always a bit leary about gadgets with lots of plug in accessories - you always seem to get into a situation where you need to plug more than one into the same socket at the same time.

Canuck: 6-8 hours does kind of put the Prism in the same league as all the WinCE Pocket PC's - I suspect that what you gain in speed gets traded off for shorter battery life. I'm also in somewhat of a similar dilemna - moving to the Palm IIIc meant that I also moved to rechargeable batteries. And I do wonder just how long they will last on a long trip.
There is a possible solution from Landware <A HREF="http://www.landware.com/catalog/palmos/index" TARGET="_blank">www.landware.com/catalog/palmos/index</A> who offer a battery pack for the Palm V - don't know whether that will work with the Visor of the Palm IIIc - might be worth checking out.

Useful piece of software (also available from Landware) is TakeNote! which is a useful editor that gets around the problem that the Palm can usually only handle documents that are 4Kb in length (longer documents are handled as serial chunks of text). Came free with my GoType! keyboard.

Two other useful sites are <A HREF="http://www.AvantGo.com" TARGET="_blank">www.AvantGo.com</A> which gives you news feeds from various sites every time you hot sync when you're logged on (I think there are some aviation sites there but I haven't tried 'em - PPRune sure isn't there - hint hint Danny?) and <A HREF="http://www.peanutpress.com" TARGET="_blank">www.peanutpress.com</A> from which you can download books - useful for long trips in cattle class. Incidentally, both these sites (and Landware) cater for both Palm and Pocket PC, but not, I think, for Psion.

Enjoy!

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Feline
(I Sit, I Watch, I Smile)

Canuck: Yeah, well, scratch the idea of the battery pack - just checked on the full spec on the Landware site and it unequivocally states that it is not compatible with the Palm III, so I presume it's not compatible with the Prism either. Might be worth watching the Landware site for when they come up with a GoType! keyboard for the Prism - that could very well come with a power adapter port on it.

I find the Landware GoType! keyboard a very useful accessory for my IIIc (it's one piece and feels more sturdy than the folding version from Palm themselves).

Cheers,



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Feline
(I Sit, I Watch, I Smile)

With AvantGo you can get it to download any site, if you work at it - even PPrune, but you don't get to the stories behind the front page.