At a meeting the other day I reflected that not too many years ago at least two of the people in the room would have had their PDAs out and would have been exchanging electronic business cards. Not a soul in a group of 8 had a PDA.
I briefly had a Palm, but only used it for addresses and when it broke I did not replace it.
If you did have a PDA and now don’t, what did you replace it with?
I have an iMate Jamin. I had tried PDA’s back in the old days, but until they put a phone in it and made reading the Dope possible, I never used the damn things. Now, I can’t live without it. I do most business/customer meetings with only a PDA to take notes. More accurately I have what is known as a smart device or pocket PC.
I have an HP iPaq that I got for free by redeeming points in HP’s purchasing program. It’s state of the art, with Bluetooth, wi-fi, etc. etc. etc. I have not yet found a real use for it. (I carry a Blackberry for work.)
I had a Sony Clie which I used in conjunction with a mobile phone to browse the web (badly) and do email, I replaced that with a Treo 600 and later a Treo 650 - which I still have. So I’m still a PalmOS PDA user, it just happens to have a phone built in.
I had a Handspring, but replaced it with a Palm Treo, which I use all the time.
I have an antique Palm 705 that I use for ebooks.
I miss my old Sharp Wizard. Feel naked without it.
I have a Palm TX that I use mostly for synching with Outlook for contacts, tasks and memos.
I always carry an HP iPaq with WiFi. I still find it quite useful; it’s much easier to use as an appointment and contact book than a cell phone. Also, while I don’t hold onto cell phones for more than a few years, I know I’ll have the PDA for a long time; I won’t have to worry about transferring information from phone to phone.
I was an early Palm adopter (1999) and had a Palm in one form or another until a couple of months ago. I’d ended up getting a Treo 650, which I did like but then I saw a Moto Q handset and fell in love. I can sync with all my MS programs, including Outlook, which means I can access my calendar, tasks, contacts etc any time.
So I don’t have a true PDA anymore but my Q fills that need quite nicely.
I still carry a Palm all the time, currently a Palm TX. Mostly because I want something to read or do whenever I have idle time (e.g. waiting in line), but it’s nice to have all my contact information with me all the time.
I had a smartphone for a while (Treo 600, I think) but I couldn’t justify the cost of a cell phone plan. Now I carry a basic prepaid cell phone for emergencies, and Palm gets to go online only at home.
I also thought about replacing the Palm with a UMPC and actually tried an OQO 02, but it’s still pretty heavy, and slower than a Palm for a lot of things.
I don’t think I’d survive long without my Palm. I use it for tracking money, daily medications and my humongous DVD collection (so I don’t accidentally buy duplicates). I also organize virtually all of my time using a third party calendar (Datebk5). I assume smart phones provide some of this functionality, but I’ve been holding off on an iPhone until I see better third party apps, particularly Datebk5-like functions and simple database capabilities (e.g., J-File).
Palm. Wish I had more need for it, these days, but I assume it is still working.
I still have and use my Palm T3. I don’t use it much for addresses or calendar appointments any more, that functionality having been replaced by my cell phone/BlackBerry. But I like the brighter, larger screen and especially the “pull-out” feature in the T3, and do still use it for eBook reading and picture viewing.
I also got an MP3 player app for it that can read MP3 files off the SD card and supports gapless playback, which I used until the iPods finally came out with support for that feature. I still use the T3 as my emergency backup music player.
Some games are best on the Palm too, as compared to on my cell phone or Blackberry, since it has the tap screen: Bejeweled! and downloading the NY Times crosswords and the like.
If I ever go to the iPhone though, it may finally get its final retirement.
Dell Axim X5. Love it. I like the palm software better, but hey…it’s going away. I use it to synch my contacts, calendar, tasks from Outlook, I can do documents on it, and I have a couple of games that really help wile away dead time like waiting in line.
I also have a Dell Axim, but I admit I don’t use it as much as I used to because I’m almost never away from a PC. I’ll go weeks without using it. It’s indispensible when I’m traveling, though.
T/X. Still synch it every day for email, AVANTGO, and in emergancies, the Mobil Travel Map or the First Aid Guide program.
Tungsten E2. I bought it mainly for my Gradebook, so I can just enter things on the fly and at home.
I keep half my brain in my Palm TX.
I have to stay chained to my corporate e-mail at all times, so I got a Samsung IP-830 smartphone.
