Well, after missing one too many meetings, and trying too hard to coordinate work and school, and always forgetting to write stuff down, I’ve decided to organize my life by getting a Palm device of some sort. Most people I know have them, and they say that they’re amazing, and I think they’d work for me, but for some reason it seems like a big investment. I’m not limiting it to Palm (I know there are other companies like Visor), but I’d like to get people’s take on which one I should buy, or what kind other people have. Do you like your handheld organizer? Does it help you, or do you worry that you’ll lose it? Is it ever annoying, or has it saved your life?
I’ll be using mine for: writing down my homework assigments, noting when I have meetings for my job, and keeping phone numbers together. I don’t think I need a particularly snazzy one (it should be cool, but it doesn’t need to have color and games), and I’m looking to spend between 100 and 200 dollars.
So Dopers, please help me decide if I should get a Palm!
I’m very happy with my Palm Vx. I use it all the time, and yes, I have lost it and had to purchase another. I’ve found the alarm function probably the most helpful, so in that respect it’s saved me from being late to many a meeting. I haven’t seen any instances where it’s been annoying, except when it comes to angling it to get the best picture resolution–that can be a pain sometimes when I’m using it for a long period time and not sitting completley still.
I think most any Palm model will fill the bill for what you want since your requirements are pretty small. I’d recommend going to Best Buy or somewhere to test the different models out and seeing what you like.
I’m one my third Palm now. I had a Palm Pilot 1000 (the original), a Palm III, and now a Palm m100. I love them. I’ve gotten about two years out of each of them.
For what you want to do, a Palm m100 or 105 will be perfect. I wish I had spent the extra to get the m105 because it has 8 mB of memory instead of 2mB. I would recommend the m105 for that reason. You might want to research the Palm’s with the memory expansion slot - I’ve seen “student” packages that include dictionaries and things like that on a card that you can stick in your Palm.
You don’t need a color display, e-mail, or wireless, so you can stay away from the more expensive Palms. And you don’t need the hardware expansion that the Visor would give you.
And the m100 and m105 have detachable faceplates so you can accessorize! OK, not really a bonus, more of a marketing ploy.
There are many Palm sites, so do some research to see what others have done. Palm owners love to talk about how they use their Palm.
The fear about losing it is valid, but I’ve found that because I take it everywhere, I don’t tend to forget it. And your data is backed up onto your desktop computer (if you remember to do that regularly) so the risk of data loss is low. Get a nice case for it, and a good stylus too. The best way to get it ingrained into your life is to use it all the time.
I did a survey of the lower cost PDAs for my job recently, and the one that I ended up recommending was the Handspring Visor Pro; inexpensive, durable, expandable, tons of memory, and no flashy geegaws or doodads that you don’t need. Biggest reason: it’s rechargeable. Nothing more annoying than shelling out bucks for batteries constantly.
I’ve a Blackberry. Wireless email was a priority for me, the PIM stuff was secondary. If I didn’t have a Blackberry, I’d probably have Handspring’s Treo 90. I hate using Graffiti (Palm’s text input software) and prefer a thumb-operated qwerty keyboard instead.
For your price range, I suggest a Palm m125 or a Visor Platinum/Neo. The m125 is very cheap but more expandable than Palm’s entry level device (the m105). The Platinum and the Neo are the same device (spec-wise, that is) 'cept the Neo is available in ‘cool’ colors.
Wow, good point, MrVisible. I never really thought about batteries.
I have the pager-sized Blackberry which does not have a rechargeable battery. I prefer it this way. I only sync my Blackberry to my machine at work. If I had a device that had to be in the cradle to recharge, I’d have to take my cradle with me (or get a charger/extra cradle) when I travel for business or go on vacation. Now, if the battery needs to be changed, I just change the battery. No muss, no fuss. For others, though, I can see how a rechargeable battery would be desireable.
Where I work, my palm is indispensable. I usually get a new one every year or so and I just got the Palm M505. It has the slot for little expansion paks (about the size and thickness of a quarter), but I haven’t bought one yet. I am looking forward to buying the streetfinder or atlas expansion paks.
It probably has more than what you need it for, but even the simplest PDAs are great for appointments and phone numbers. If you do get one, be sure to download a program that allows you to write and save notes right on the screen. Saves more time than the awkward “graffiti” method.
I love my Palm and can’t live without it. I probably rely on it way too much - I don’t even know my own cell phone number or the exact day of my grandmother’s birthday without consulting it.
Anyway, there isn’t a huge difference between the various Palm-compatible PDAs (Palm, Visor, Handera, SONY Clie, etc. If you use it indoors a lot, I highly recommend a color display. Most monochrome displays are impossible to see under dim light such as subway stations and conference halls. Color displays are hard to see under direct sunlight, but most people don’t use PDAs outdoors in the middle of the day. Or you can get the best of both worlds by going for a reflective color display which are used on some high-end SONY units. They are perfectly legible under all lighting conditions.
I have the SONY T650 and have mixed feelings about it. It’s very compact and has an awesome screen, I hate the tiny little buttons, especially the up/down switch. I suggest you go to a well stocked store, try them all and buy the one that looks and feels right to you. Laptops and PDAs are a very personal choice.
There are also “Windows powered” PDAs which run Microsoft operating systems, such as those by HP, Compaq and Casio. I used to own an HP and it was everything you expect from Microsoft - slow and packed with way too many features. I like the minimalistic approach of the Palm compatible PDAs.
I’ve had my Sony Clie N770C (the UK version of the N760) for about a year now - I am still very pleased with it although I lust after the new model with the inbuilt camera.
Definitely ditto what MrVisible said about batteries.
I use mine in conjunction with a mobile phone (both devices have IR ports) to get email and browse the web (I have posted on the board from it once or twice), games are much better on a colour screen but that isn’t the only justification for having one - it makes a lot of the ordinary apps much easier on the eye, plus I can store a few family photos on there.
If you are going for PalmOS, it is quite safe to totally ignore all the hype about which unit has the fastest processor; Palm apps seldom suffer much in the way of slowdown anyway.
The grafitti entry system nearly put me off buying one - I nearly bought a Psion 5MX - this would have been a huge mistake I think. Grafitti takes less than five minutes to learn.
I’ll chime in for my Sony Clie T615C…I love it! You can get one on Ebay for around $200
I like the color for a bunch of reasons, but the main one is is that I can read ebooks on it in the dark- which makes my wife happy now that I don’t have the bedside lamp on anymore when she is trying to sleep.
The Clie comes with good software, including a picture viewer. I’ve loaded a bunch of photos on it of my new daughter, so I can show her off all the time! I also have upgraded the spreadsheet viewer, so now I use Excel sheets for tons of stuff with the office. The to do software organizes my life.
The neat thing about a PDA is that I find myself actually using it! Anytime I think of something that I need to do- whip it out, type it in. Bored on the tram? I’ve got 20 books installed. They rock!
I have a Compaq Ipaq which I like quite a bit. My problem is that I used a paper system for about 10 years before going with this and I find the paper system hard to give up because NO handheld gives the kind of full month review that I like. I like to look at the full month and be able to read what’s going on on each particular date very clearly. Plus, I am such a visual person that sometimes, just seeing 9/27 doesn’t mean the same thing to me as seeing it on a calendar as the 4th Friday of the month. (Time on a clock with hands makes more sense to me than a digital watch, for instance.)
Having said that, I’m slowly making the transition mainly because carrying around my datebook get cumbersome.
If your only plan is to use the handheld or PDA for meetings, appointments, phone numbers, etc - I think you’re at the perfect price range and will find lots of great products. I wouldn’t spend the extra $$ on the color and all that. I like the Compaq because we use Outlook at work and so it syncs perfectly with it. The color also gives me some flexibility to help me visually. I use Pocket Informant (available at office supply stores).
I think the Visor Platinum sounds like a good choice for you. I hope you enjoy it!
I used to have a palm pilot - it was an office-supplied perk. I found I never used it beyond its calendar/phone number/etc. capabilities. It may have been a highly functional mini-PC-like thing but I only used it like a daytimer.
If you only want this capability, there’s a number of non-programmable electronic organizers (like this one) that may meet the need much more cheaply. This one on the URL will even sync with Microsoft Outlook via a cable.
One factor for me is break & loss factors. I don’t want to accidentally lose or destroy a $300 item when I can simply lose a $20 one.
I have a Compaq Ipaq which I like quite a bit. My problem is that I used a paper system for about 10 years before going with this and I find the paper system hard to give up because NO handheld gives the kind of full month review that I like. I like to look at the full month and be able to read what’s going on on each particular date very clearly. Plus, I am such a visual person that sometimes, just seeing 9/27 doesn’t mean the same thing to me as seeing it on a calendar as the 4th Friday of the month. (Time on a clock with hands makes more sense to me than a digital watch, for instance.)
Having said that, I’m slowly making the transition mainly because carrying around my datebook get cumbersome.
If your only plan is to use the handheld or PDA for meetings, appointments, phone numbers, etc - I think you’re at the perfect price range and will find lots of great products. I wouldn’t spend the extra $$ on the color and all that. I like the Compaq because we use Outlook at work and so it syncs perfectly with it. The color also gives me some flexibility to help me visually. I use Pocket Informant (available at office supply stores).
I think the Visor Platinum sounds like a good choice for you. I hope you enjoy it!
I respectfully disagree on the need for color - it’s nice, yes, but my monochrome Palm Vx has a backlight that’s handy for low-light situations. The main disadvantage with color is that it way sucks battery power. When I travel for less than about a week, I don’t even bother including a recharger (and I can go a lot longer if I can keep myself from playing SubHunt). I don’t think I’d be able to go more than a couple of days with most color models.
I heartily agree, however, with having at least 8K. You’ll find extra uses for your Palm - for example, I found a nifty grocery-shopping program, which is great because in NYC I can’t get all my grocery shopping done in one place. And then there’s Vindigo, which is (a) enormous and (b) wonderful - restaurant, bar, shopping and service information for many major cities, including maps, locator information, reviews, etc. You may have other professional resources available - a shrink friend of mine has a palm version of the DSM-IV (it’s the diagnostic manual for pysch types).
My Handspring Visor deluxe has served me well over the past year and a half. You can get one on closeout for under $100. The Platinum should also be available real cheap too as they are discontinued. The Prism, a color model, is also out there cheap—get that is you can. If Graffiti is too bothersome, purchase Tealscript, an outstanding utility that lets you customize all entry characters to your own scrawl. It has made the device useful for me.
If I were to buy a new PDA today, I probably would go with either Palm or SONY. Handspring has been real disappointing lately with poor user support. They may have serious financial problems. SONY seems to have the easiest to read screen resolution in both color and monochrome.
I really like – and really use – my Palm IIIc. But if I had to do it over, I’d buy a cheaper model. The color screen works perfectly well, but doesn’t really help with any actual tasks, since not much software uses color (exception: DayNotez). Also, the 8MB of memory is LOTS more than I use (I’ve never gotten close to even 4MB).
I’m getting a palm at work.
What about ebooks? There is a format for them and a program that writes those files from .TXT, so I can download public doman stuff to er, read while I wait in line and stuff.
ebooks- loads of fun, but unfortunately there are so many different formats that you have to have about 4 different readers installed… I currently have iSilo, PalmReader, TomeRaider, CSPOTRUN, Aportis and Vizware for Word files…some formats overlap, but most don’t.
www.memoware.com has a ton of stuff, plus explanations on all of the different formats.
The thing that pisses me off about the whole ebook thing is the same argument I have about mp3- If the ‘powers-that-be’ would bring the prices down, I’d buy a new book (or CD) every week. Unfortunately they seem to think that shelling out $5 to $10 an eBook is fair. I’ve even seen eBooks for over $30! WTF? So I don’t buy 'em- I might as well buy a hardcopy and then sell it to a used book store and cut my cost-per-book down to about $3 to $4. They don’t have to pay for printing, paper, transport or ??? to sell an eBook, so why charge the same price as a normal book?
But you can find tons of free ebooks out there- mainly classics and amateur stuff though. Plus I’m sure you could find hacked stuff if you really looked hard enough.
For ebook readin I recommend color, or at least a backlit model.
