I am looking at getting a PDA people and just want your opinions on what is the best one to get for now and will have room for some expansion in the future.

does sony make pda's?

if so, get a sony.

Defianetaly Sony, if possible.

They seem pretty good, but I was wondering about peoples experiences with them. I will probably get it later in the year and duty free so it can be one of the higher models like the Sony's.

icles

The Compact Ipacs are pretty damn nice, or the Casio Casiopias.

PDAs arnt worth the money though

I hear the Compaq and Toshiba ones are cool too.... I would like one, but only if you can attach a key board of some sort rather than a gay stylus.

Casio ones are good.

..whats a PDA?

I would never buy anything made by Casio... its always just seemed like a s***ty wanabe brand to me....

They spend most of their time in the PDA sector of the market, calculators, organisers and I think they made sat phones for a while.

wait....trying out my deduction skillz here..something..something to do with small handheld electrical thingies... O_o

What do people know about those integrated Mobile/PDA things? Like the Handspring Treo or that new Sony/Ericson.

Would they be a better all round solution as they would be 2 things in one?

I reckon they would be gay....

motorola has had one released for a while, i trialed it for the weekend, was okay, but it would break and were easily.
I dont like the whole intergration thing

A reason why you think this Anarot would be helpful.

i dont really understand owning a pda...whats the point? for their capabilities wouldnt some paper and a pen be a smarter option?

guess its just another toy to play with

I wouldnt mind one if it had an mp3 player in it.

I just think having a big bulky phone woudl be extremely annoying...

The Toshiba PDA plays Mp3s - it has a media player on it, you can play videos and everything - pretty damn cool :)

Yeti, this is THE PDA of PDA's... Sharp Zaurus SL-5000D

i have a compaq ipaq (3630) and after i bought it threw my diary out! The sync feature means that both my work and hom computers are always running the same outlook diary and there are so many cool upgrades and mods to make it pretty/functional.

I would definitely get recommend getting one (if you got the cash) - it's tax deductiable, plus if you want a good deal let me know cos I have made a good contact through when I bought mine.

I think pdas are a waste of money because it takes longer to store the information in that stupid little handheld gadget than to write it down in a diary or notepad... it has no keyboard /end rant.

I think you can get keyboards for them... what about that infra-red one that was beemed onto the desk that was in that post a few months ago - I want one of them sooo badly!

You can get keyboards for them and isn't the stylus used to write into it? If so how is it any diferent to a notebook/diary?

pdas very useful for especially in the IT industry, I use my palm for timebilling purposes as well as to store info about clients pc's contacts, tasks etc. the added fact that you can sync it with outlook so any contacts/calenders/tasks that you do through outlook will be on your pda when you sync it.

the ipaqs are currently the best pocket pc in the market and are very hard to get a hold of because of demand. SuRgEn (of The Bunker) has a HP Jornada which is pretty neat.

pdas are definitely the best to have around when you are at a job waiting for norton's to clean up viruses to have a good ol game of solitare :D

i've got a targus stowaway keyboard: folds up to be the size of the ipaq. definitely useful and turns the heads too.

compact setup you can take anyway and does all the important things a laptop with office would do. but excel and word are significantly reduced in size. mostly removes unused features etc.

Hewlett Packard make brilliant PDA's atm we are looking into them at work so we can log jobs on the go.

we are currently looking at hp jornada 710

They are very nice little toys and are pretty kewl too. Personally i think if you are buying one for yourself then don't waste your money. But for what we do at work they are brilliant.

f*** PDA's

Just get one of those wearable computers so YOU TOO could be a CYBORG
:D :D

mmmmtoll the cyborg, aaarrrgghhhhh

Yeah, the compaq IPAQ Are the best PDA you can buy atm.

I think tomshardware had a roundup recently.

And Tom's Hardwares review is crooked. Let me explain later.


I just bought a Toshiba e570 about 2 weeks ago. I did quite a bit of research in this area. Basically you would to get a Palm if you have a small budget, or a PocketPC if you have the money. Now, with PocketPC, make sure it runs MS PocketPC 2002, which most newer models run anyway. And really beyond that there aren't really much difference between the pocketpcs.

The major ones you might be considering though, would be Compaq, Casio, Sony, HP, and Toshiba. They are really pretty much the same. Most models have 64Mb RAM and 32Mb ROM, and have some kind of expansion slot built in. Since the operating system is the same, the ability to synchronise with your desktop and the ability to listen to MP3 or watch videos are more or less the same.

My suggestion is, go to a shop and actually SEE the pda yourself, and if possible, play around with it. Everyone has their view of what model looks good and what looks gay. For example, some reviewrs say Toshiba e570 (the one I bought) looks sleek, some say bland. So you really have to decide for yourself.

When I was shopping for my pocket PC, the brands that I gave most consideration to was Compaq and Toshiba. I didn't really like Sony so I never really looked into it. My impression (which can very well be wrong) is that Sony's PDA is more a cross between pocketpc and palm, and it doesn't uses pocketpc 2002, and the processor is different. (BTW, you want to get a SARM processor (not SH3 or MIP)).

As with HP, I didn't like the look at all. And Casio wasn't too bad because it has a scroll wheel on the side and it has replaceable rechargable battery. (Apparently it also has USB port on it). I didn't look too closely into it because I wasn't able to locate a shop that sells the model that I wanted to consider (e200)).

So at the end, it was a showdown between Compaq's iPaq and Toshiba's e570. Basically the differences are:

iPaq's pro:
Pro: Bigger screen (5mm bigger, but same resolution), sharper picture (better contrast and brightness), lots of accessory available, (if 3870) builtin bluetooth, most popular PDA (thus almost an industry standard)
Con: Slightly worse battery life (bigger battery but much more power consumption), bulkier, one SD slot builtin (which is actually same as most other brands, so it is probably not really a shortcoming), more expensive (3850 is $150 more, 3870 is $250 more)

Toshiba's pros: Smaller in size, has 1 SD slot and 1 CF slot built in (more on that later), cheaper.

Cons: Smaller screen (though same resolution as iPaq), contrast not as good (though comparable to most other models), almost no accessory available in shops (but some with online stores, though still nowhere near iPaq's range), Toshiba relatively new into the market.

Just one more point on the memory medium. Compaq uses Secure Digital (SD) cards, which are the newer generation storage medium. I am not sure what the difference is in performace, but compared to the more traditional Compact Flash (CF) cards, SD are about twice the price. Also, CF cards goes up to 512Mb, and SD cards only goes up to 128Mb (but may go up more in future). Also, the CF slot on Toshiba can be used for other CF devices, such as microdrive (tiny harddisks). Compaq can also use CF cards, but you'll need to buy expansion sleeves. One note: compaq does really have s***loads of accessories, and there are many different kind of expansion sleeves.

My recommendation is that if you have the money to burn (bear in mind that you might have to pay for expansion sleeves and the more expansive SD card, on top of the higher prices), and doesn't care about the bulk, then Compaq is definitely the way to go. If you are like me, who cares about small size, and saving money, then give Toshiba some thoughts (although you should look at Casio too)).

(Warning: the followings are just me whinging about review sites)
There are a few review sites you can go to.. but frankly I don't find them all that useful. Most of them are really subjective, and some contains blantantly false information. (Like CNET insists that iPaq 3850 is 64bit GRAY scale, when it displays colours really beautifully). I don't like Tom's site because his review gave really misleading "final marks" which doesn't have solid basis for it. (I guess I am just pissed because he ranked my beloved Toshiba LAST). But take its review of Toshiba, you'll find that he has very little bad things to say about Toshiba, and lots of bad things to say about other brands like Casio, and Toshiba ranks the best in battery life and performance amongst the pocketpcs reviewed... and YET, Toshiba still ranked last. Why? Probably only because its screen is smallest. So "never mind the battery last longer, never mind it runs applications faster, and never mind it has two buildin expansion slots instead of 1 or even none, if the screen is small, we'll rank it last." :P

Anyway, that's my 2cents.

Btw, Palm isn't too bad either. They tend to be more stable, battery last longer, and have a LOT more applications available than pocketpcs. But their screen are smaller and not as colourful, and it doesn't support multitasking either.

And most importantly, Palm isn't microsoft.... which can be good because we don't want Microsoft to become the Umbrella Corp in Resident Evil, but can be bad because it is an unfamiliar operating system. I retried my palm because my palm (Vx) doesn't have expansion slot, and 8Mb is only good for 3 medical reference. Otherwise palm make pretty good PDAs too.

http://members.optushome.com.au/3x0dus/New Camera/Ausgamers_PDA.jpg
=)

mine would be much better if i knoew i could throw in a Solid state drive into it.. there is sometype of connector inside the actuall thin like ATA inteface miniturised but they dont have any info on about it on symbol site =)

Look, a keyboard the sharp has it all!
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/images/sl5000d-15.jpg http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/images/sl5000d-7.jpg

http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/images/sl5000d-18.jpg

Have a look here...

personally I think PDA's are offensive, if you want to do that sort of thing do it behind closed doors!!

:D

these things are awesome...my uncle has got one...(really expensive he got it through salary sacrifice ie no tax) and its sweet as bit expensive for my liking but...pen and paper so much cheaper (dont give me any of that in the long run crap either) besides id rather spend the money on upgrades for my comp :)

but in the long run...... hehe :p

Does the sharp one run MS pocketpc or its own OS?

It runs Linux.

OMFG!!!