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PDAs

  • 26-04-2002 10:45pm
    #1
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,728 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    What are people?s recommendations/experiences for a mid-range Palm compatible device and where would be a good place to purchase one in Ireland.
    Ball park figure of ?350-?450, decent battery life and the ability to store/view word/html documents efficiently.
    Cheers


Comments

  • #2
    mayhem#
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,051 ✭✭✭mayhem#


    Why go for a Palm device?
    The WinCE ones are much better...


  • #3
    Inspector Gadget
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭Inspector Gadget


    What you want depends *strongly* on which elements you prize more...

    Any actual Palm OS device will require something called "Documents To Go" to read Word Docs and the like; as regards HTML, well, you could go the AvantGo (offline web site browser)/Plucker (open source web site archival thingy) or Handspring's Blazer web browser (not sure if it's got a mechanism for storing/retrieving stuff other than from its cache, though). Remember that the standard Palm screen is 160x160 (except for most of the Sony Clies, that have 320x320 screens)

    Battery life is another issue - a colour screen will require a rechargeable battery, and as colour screens practically require the backlight except in very specific lighting conditions, the battery life will take a nosedive.

    (As an aside, the m130 "budget" colour one, is an STN rather than the TFT colour screens in the all other Palm OS devices - these have a nasty tendency to look "washed out" - especially under flourescent lights)

    I own a AAA-powered one (not one with a rechargeable power cell) and I get between 40 and 75 days per set. I believe most people can get two weeks out of a mono rechargeable Palm (such as a V, Vx or m500) and perhaps four days out of a colour Palm (IIIc, m505, m515, etc.). All of these figures assume you're actively using it for maybe an hour (in total) a day.

    Long battery life = mono screen; colour screen = pretty + rechargeable, bolted-in battery. Rechargeable, bolted-in battery = limited effective range away from mains power, if this is an issue.

    Hope this helps,
    Gadget


  • #4
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,728 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    Thanks for the replies.
    In the end it was a toss up between a Palm M500 (b/w with a higher spec) or an M130 (colour with lower spec) both the about the same price. In the end I went with the M500 as it was more feature rich. Happily d/l lots of free stuff for it.
    I did not go the CE route as it was priced out of range (also shop around, I found at least €90 difference in price between the same models).


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