I am ignorant about PDAs so forgive me if I ask a few questions about their capabilities. What I want to do is read the files I have saved on my flash drive on a small screen that I can lay back and read. Reading massive amounts of text sitting upright in front of a computer screen is very uncomfortable for me.
What I have saved on my flash drive is mainly the saved text from web pages, stored as “HTML only” so I have the word content of web pages but no pictures. So I want to plug my FD into a PDA and read the text from my stored web page articles and essays.
Can I do this and if so what kind PDA would you recommend?
PDAs are kind of small for reading, but you might consider the Sony Reader, which is a new electronic book product and which can support Memory Sticks or SD cards.
I’m not aware of any PDA that can accecpt a normal, USB flash drive. The reason being that PDAs aren’t capable (or, at least, aren’t programmed to be capable) of being a USB host.
However, most of them accept some kind of smaller memory card, usually SD or micro SD (though any Sony branded one will use Sony Memory Stick.)
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I’m not aware of any PDA that can accecpt a normal, USB flash drive. The reason being that PDAs aren’t capable (or, at least, aren’t programmed to be capable) of being a USB host.
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Not entirely true. There is a more recent Windows Mobile 5 device (can’t recall which one) that has a USB host and a single Mini-A USB port built-in. There is also a product for the Dell Axim X50-series PDAs that gives you a single USB port plus USB host that can be used to conect up to 4 devices, including Flash drive. The only problem is that it uses the CF port and you can only use one flash drive at a time. Not that this is a serious problem.
Personally I find the Dell Axim X50v and X51v a good PDA for reading. It’s a VGA device with a 3.7" TFT screen and can employ ClearType font smoothing to provide nice-looking text. It’s also great for movies.
Many PDAs that accept SD cards and so on can be used as a flashdrive / card reader either natively or via software. I use a program called Cardreader on my Palm for just that reason. Sit the PDA on its cradle, run the app, tap the connect button and it comes up as a drive. Then I just drag and drop whatever files I want - .mp3, .avi, ebooks and what have you.
PDAs are fine for reading on and it’s nice to be able to read in the dark because of the backlight. Can’t really recommend a specific model for you, but get one with a decent sized screen. If you want a PalmOS device, that would be the TX or Lifedrive. Don’t know much about Win Mobile devices, bar the fact that I want an Axim X51v.
