I’m thinking a little PDA might come in useful during my medical career, and my parents and husband have offered to buy me one for a graduation present.
I’d like one that I can put medical textbooks and so on into, and one with a good organiser/calendar system, all in a handy pocket sized shell. Any ideas on good makes/models and what to avoid altogether?
well, first question is do you want a phone with that PDA? Do you need to get on line to check email, do reference work, update your files, etc?
What size (form factor) do you want? How are you going to carry it around (in your pants pocket, shirt pocket, medical coat pocket, on a belt, in your purse, etc?
Since you want textbooks, I would recommend a Windows Mobile device rather than a Blackberry or one of the others. Eg, you want a real PDA rather than a messaging device with some PDA type functions. Assuming your textbooks will be pdf, word or microsoft reader format (all of which can be read on a windows mobile but you need an add on for the pdf reader).
Before making recomendations, you really need to give a few hints on how you’re going to use the device.
A good PDA? I like a nice sloppy tongue kiss with a surreptitious ass grab.
Oh. Never mind.
Ok, I don’t need a phone.
The PDA will go in my pocket or handbag, and I need it to have my to do list, calendar and chores on. It needs to have an alarm of some kind to remind me to do certain things at certain times. My handwriting is awful, and carrying around a tatty piece of paper with all my jobs for the day on it does not appeal.
I want to be able to put a BNF and some medical textbooks on it, so that I’ll be able to check things quickly at the bedside, without having to run to the library.
Email and being able to get online would be a bonus, but not essential.
Some friends have Palm Pilots and Cliés, I just don’t know what to get.
To provide a contrasting opinion to China guy’s, maybe a Zire 31 would be good if you don’t need windows mobile for your textbooks. Zire is palm, so it wouldn’t be able to handle microsoft reader format, but most other formats should be workable.
The difference between and Palm and a Clié is nothing. They both run Palm OS, but Sony has stopped manufacturing the Clié so those units you see out there will be dated.
I recommend the Palm TX. It has 128 MB RAM, SD Card expansion slot, Wi-Fi, and is capable of E-mail and browsing the web. It has a large display (Larger than the Zire series) so reading E-books will be very easy. It has the memory for your medical references (and if it doesn’t you can expand it with an SD card), the calendar and “To Do” programs are simple and straight forward to use, it has alarms you can set, and best of all, you can customize just about anything you don’t like. You don’t like the text input system, you can download a program and change that. You don’t like Palm’s GUI, you cna download a program and change it. You don’t like Palm’s calendar, download a program and change it.
I’ve had my TX for 3 months now and absolutely love it. It is by far the best PDA I’ve ever owned.
Do you have a phone? I do, and I hate having two devices banging around in my purse. My husband has a Treo and I lust for it. You can get cards to store even more information, but in my only slightly informed opinion, it looks like you can load quite a bit on there as it is.
I got a Palm Tungsten C for 40% off (Overstock.com) and am absolutely married to it. I can thumb-type almost as fast as with a regular keyboard, I have applications to let me carry around e-documents and Microsoft Office files (iSilo and DocumentsToGo), and I use a kick-ass organizer to document all my appointments and tasks. I’d be absolutely lost without my PDA…
Unless it has changed in a year and a half, I would recommend not going with Windows CE. If you do, make sure the device has at least 64 mb or ram. I used to work with a wireless company and I beta tested a lot of would be cool devices except for the fact that they either had 32 mb of ram, not enough to run effectively with Win CE, or it just would crap out. Palm and Symbian systems were much more stable.
But then again this was about a year and a half ago, so the problems are probably more worked out by now. Just some general info for you. Congradulations on becoming a doctor or whatever you are going to be, by the way irishgirl