PDA Reviews

Great PDA, I'm a medschool student and it helps a lot in the hospital and in the classrooms. A lot of free medical software to download from the web. The camera it's awesome, it has a slow shutter function that allows you to take pictures even in dark rooms; the resolution (1.3MP) it's good and I can take pictures of patients, X ray films, CT scans and more with nice quality.
The battery lasts for at least 5 hours of continuous work, and the integrated keyboard helps a lot when you're tired of using the stylus. The internal memory it's quite short, but I bought a 256 MB Lexar MS (not too expensive) and don't have any problem.
I do recomend this PDA for medschool students because it's a helpful tool in the hospital (specially the camera). The free software I found on the web includes drug guides, medical calculators, diagnostic and tratment tools, medical news software, etc, etc, etc.

I Heard Of This PDA In Circuit City. Everytime I Go There, I Practice Graffiti On The PDAs All The Time. When I Went There With My Mom, I Took A Picture Of Her With The Built-In Digital Camera That's Included On The PDA. I Heard About The Highest Resolution It Goes: 1,280 x 960 Pixels. When I Bring It With Me Everyday To School, I Can Take Pictures Of My Friends That Are Girls. I Also Heard This Has A Built-In MP3 Player. Then I Be Able To Listen To Music On This Thing. Then I Have Both iPod And Sony NX80V To Listen To Music To. But I Have To Store My Music On A Memory Stick. But The Memory Sticks Are Kind Of Expensive. But, I Still Can Afford The Memory Sticks In The Store. I Don't Know You Can Carry Around Your Neck If It's 8.0 Ounces.

This is my third PDA, the priors were Palm IIIvx, Sony Clie 610C. I really use my PDA all day, so I could justify paying a bit more for a nicer PDA. I have friends with CE based machines and they really don't use them nearly as much as I use mine.

Pros:
Too many to mention all of them, but the all add up to great usability. I really used a lot of the features that I thought were just bells and whistles. The flip display is great because you don't need a case unless you are trying to keep the unit pretty. The camera was a life-saver for shooting white boards before they get erased and showing tech support problems that were hard to describe over the phone/email without a picture. The voice memo took excellent notes even at conference meetings (much better than my friend's Palm Tungsten 2). Additional apps such as a mileage log (Trip) have been so important to me that I replaced the hard-wired button for notes with it. The Silk Launcher has a mode that adds more app buttons to the graffiti area.

Battery life is very good. I would often go for 3 or 4 days between charges, regardless of the display brightness. If I reduced the brightness, I could go for a week of light use between charges.

Cons:
A tad big. Too heavy to tote around for MP3s at the gym.
After well over a year of heavy use, the Power/Hold slider button died, making the unit unusable (Fortunately, I sync'd up just a few hours before it broke!).

Decision Time:
Sony want's $150 to fix it. For double that, I can get a new one, and since no other PDA surpasses the UX80V, I think I will do that. I have been very rough on my Clie, but it really is a workhorse for me.

Visor Cradles perform well regardless of the type of synchronization port you use. This cradle is handy if you need to synchronize data on your desktop or laptop computer and do not have a USB card installed in your PC.

The price point makes this a better purchase than buying a USB card unless you plan on using the USB port for other peripheral devices.

A lot of good if you have this serial cradle!

Our computers don't support USB in our somewhat dated NT4 Workstation environment. Without this serial cradle, I would not be able to sync my Visor.

I am buying a Visor Handspring, but I already have a Hotsync cradle that came with my now dead Palm 3X. Will that cradle work with my new Handspring, or must I buy this? (sorry, I know that this is not a rating, but I know that some other shoppers will be interested to read the answer! Thanks.

it took me a month to get my order and then it is the wrong cradle. the seller did not specify which cradle this was for in his discription and i recieved the wrong color i recieved metal gray not "ICE". all i can say is thanks for nothing!

Excellent cradles either way. I use the USB cradle at home and a serial one at work. You can't tell the difference in speed. The hot sync button on the cradle works like a champ.

This is a must if you don't have a USB port, or if your running Win NT. Goes without saying that synching with a serial device isn't as fast as with the USB cradle, but it does get the job done. I use the USB cradle at home and the serial cradle at the office.

I get compliments on this stylus all the time. People love to take it from me and just hold it. It truly feels great. I tried literally dozens of different brands and types of styluses (stlyii?) before I decided this was the best one. I don't need one that's four colors of pen and a pencil and a stylus and has a pocket clip. All I need is a stylus that feels right when I write with it. This one is just about perfect. It's much, much heavier than the standard Palm stylus, and it's longer. The orange tip is highly visible against the screen or the backlight; it almost looks like it glows in the dark. And most importantly, the stylus fits exactly into the Palm III stylus slot, and it stays put. The only little quibble I have is that the stylus comes unscrewed a little too easily (there's a reset pin inside), but then again, I come unscrewed easily myself, so I can relate.

Hello,

If you are trying to make a decision on which stylus to buy for your palm, get this one. It is worth every cent.

I own the palm IIIx, and IIIxe. I used the PALM 3 pack stylus that you can purchase..., but they can't compete with the panache for letter recognition. I even was using prior to the panache, the write right screen enhancement on the bottom portion of my palm screen thinking it would help with letter recognition, and it did help some, but when I used this new styli I had no need for the screen protector anymore because the letter recognition is great. It also writes very smoothly. It is sleek, and gives your palm a classier look.

Another thing, the manufacturer will guarantee the orange tip of the styli for life, with free replacement. The styli is heavier than the other palm styli which makes it easier to write. I am going to pick up a couple more because the price is right.

Good luck shopping!

A must have for palm users. It improved the writing recognition and doesn't miss the spot after buying this. It feels great in the hand too. I love it.

I bought a TRENDnet 10/100 Mbps PCMCIA Fast Ethernet Card to use it with a Compaq Notebook. Can I use this card with the Compaq iPAQ PC Card Expansion Pack in a pocket PC iPAQ 3630?

This expansion pack for the Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC will extend the features of your iPAQ -- taking it from the toy catetory to a productivity tool.

You will need this accessory if you want to:

- Use the PC Cards you currently own, such as a modem, ethernet card, wireless card, cell phone modem, barcode scanner, etc.

- Have the only device currently available that includes additional battery power. The iPAQ has a non-removable battery. This is the only way to add battery to the iPAQ, short of building your own batter extender and lugging it around. The extra battery is required to support the power needs of a PC Card.

This expansion pack is bigger than the compact flash expansion pack -- it adds 3.5cm thickness and 132 grams of weight to your iPAQ, more than doubling its thickness.

You want this if you currently have PC cards that you'd like to use with or iPAQ or if there is a card that you want to use (such as a wireless one) that is not available in Compact Flash format.

This sleeve is bulky. There are reasons though. For one, you get a battery built-in that powers the adapters or storage devices without draining the main iPAQ battery source. This pack also has a power port that allows you to plug-in and charge the PDA battery and its own.

I bought this expansion pack to run the Compaq WL110 wireless LAN adapter, so I am a bit envious of the Toshiba e740 Pocket PC that has wireless built-in. Even the latest iPAQ does not come standard with wireless built-in. I suppose Compaq wants to continue the Expansion Pack sales.

There is a wide variety of Compaq Flash Card adapters. I would consider getting the CF card sleeve over this one if I had the choice over. The reasons would be the smaller size of the adapter cards, the standard CF memory cards which I use for a number of reasons such as digital photos and file storage, would fit natively without a CF card to PCMCIA adapter. Compaq makes a dual PCMCIA and CF card Expansion Pack. If you have the dough, that is the probably the ideal way to go.

Ok, let's break this one down:

Good: Programmable Macros, you push one button, it pushes as many as you set. Timer, set a time to push some buttons, and it will do it.

Bad: Setup, some of my TV remote buttons wouldn't program correctly, I had to adjust an "IR sample rate" setting to get it to work correctly. I've never seen any Universal remote need one of those settings. Power, this thing doesn't have as much reach as my other remote controls (or so it seems).

Overall: A good buy if you don't mind some setup hassles, and you're using the remote within 10 feet of your TV. Besides it's one more weird gadget to impress your friends with :-)

Ever wish you could mute everything in your home theatre "stack" with one button? This can do it. Ever want to control three different TVs but a "universal" remote will only do one? This will do it. Ever wish the "slow scan and zoom" feature was a single press on your DVD player for those special DVDs ? This can do it. Design your own remote, using macros make buttons that talk to lots of things, talk to things you can't buy a remote for (like the Sony AIBO), all possible with this gizmo.

Its definitely worth it, and the high power IR led makes it all that much better. Too bad you can't beam with it. Also unlike a 'learning remote' you might get, this doesn't forget when you change the batteries. Hotsync and you're back in business.

If you are a couch potato, you _need_ this module.

I bought this module as a gift for my fiancee's birthday. In fact I got him the Handspring Visor Prism at the same time. This module is the greatest idea. It gives you the ability to use your Visor handheld as the first truly universal remote. I say that because there are a lot of so called 'universal remotes' you can buy that may be able to control most or all of your stereo/video equipment, but I have yet to see one that can do EVERY function the original remote for that item could have done. And this one can...and you can program it yourself to do almost anything. I highly recommend this item for anyone who has a Visor. You will not regret the purchase.

The Zaurus series is super awesome. With it's new portrait view I was able to terminal server, using rdesktop a free alternate to Win ConnectZ, in to my Windows 2000 server at a resolution of 640 x 480. Compaired to older modles and other manafactured products where you get stuck scrolling around to use terminal server or have to adjust the screen resolution to match the PDA. One of the single grestest things about the Zaurus is that it is Linux based and has a comunity of people writing software for it. If you can't find what you want at the Zaurus web page, myzaurus.com, there is a tremendous resource for applications at http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus. I recently found a port of Gaim, an AOL Instant Messanging program, that works with the Zaurus there.

I do want to warn the potential buyer to read the warrenty carefuly to make sure the Zaurus doesn't fall outside of your expectations. I recently found out what the phrase "...with .01% or fewer pixels failing to light or remain lit at all times." means to me.

Even with my runin with Sharp's technical support and warranty policy my Zaurus is a wonderful machine.

I'm writing this from my new Zaurus SL6000l, yay!

Haven't gotten a really good chance to get it working with my other stuff yet. I was immediately disappointed to find that qtmail won't do imaps or smtp over ssl; our mail server won't accept clear-text passwords over the net (does anyone anymore?). Seems like a big shortsight for a business-class PDA.

Support files are sure tough to find on the Sharp site, still looking for kernel sources so I can compile up a FreeS/WAN kernel module.

I'm really looking forward to trying out one of the VOIP clients with it; the speaker and mic on the back are clearly positioned with using it as a phone in mind.

Yes! The screen does rock, I can't believe how tiny but fine it is. I'm going to be permanently cross-eyed in no time from working from 6" away!

Soon I'll be looking into trying OpenZaurus, it's clear that's the way to go.

I originally ordered mine from here; on the catalog page it said 'ships in 2-3 days.' After purchasing it, though, the wait got longer and longer; when it went to almost two weeks, I began to get angry, so canceled and ordered from PC Connection instead. Two days later it was in my hands!

First of all, don't buy this product if you want a "polished" PDA with lots of commercial apps to choose from - stick with a Palm or PocketPC.

With that out of the way, this is by far the best handheld computer I've ever owned. I stress the word "computer" because this can do everything my laptop can do. The big screen is the most gorgeous PDA screen I have ever seen. It's even better than the imported Japanese Zauruses. It has bright vivid colors, the backlight can be used as a flashlight in a dark room, AND it is totally usable outdoors in direct sunlight. Believe me, this a rare combination! The 640x480 screen, switchable "on-the-fly" at the touch of a button between landscape and portrait mode makes it incredible versatile for web surfing and editing documents. The pull-down thumbboard is plenty usable for short writing tasks, if you want to do more you can get an external keyboard that connects via infrared. Built in WiFi, built in USB host, CF and SD slots, the feature list goes on and on.

The biggest downside is that Sharp has essentially decided to stop supporting the consumer market in the US. So there aren't a lot of official resources. Fortunately, there are websites like www.zaurususergroup.com that fill in the gap. Over there you'll find an active community that can help you get the most out of your Zaurus. Since most of the basic software is open source (Linux, Qtopia, etc) it's easy to customize and develop for, and compatible with many other Linux applications. You can even install X-windows.

Bottom line, if you want the most powerful handheld device ever made, and you aren't afraid of rolling up your sleeves and figuring a few things out for yourself, this device will do more than you can imagine was possible from a PDA.

I have had a Pretec modem,which by the way I never could get to work,and now I have a Targus. Targus is much smaller,and I had it working in 10 Minutes. A very simple setup makes it easy to get online. I played with it till the early hours,accessing all my favorite websites.I paid a little more, but it was worth it. I am using a Jornada 545 with the Targus 56k modem,and the addition of the modem has changed my whole view of the possibilities of my pocket pc.I strongly encourage any Jornada user to try the Targus 56k modem.

This is an outstanding compact flash modem for pocket or handheld PC's running Windows CE version 2.0 or higher. With the Targus Compact Flash 56k v.90 Pocket Modem there is no need to set it up, just plug it in, create a connection profile and you are set and ready to browse the Web. I bought it for my Cassiopeia E-125 (perfectly compatible)and I have been surfing the net with speed and easiness. The small dimensions of the modem allow you to carry it on your own pocket or in your pocket PC Case since it is also very slim. This excellent modem is a little bit expensive yet. Anyway, and in spite of the price, this is a must if you want to stay connected to the internet with your pocket pc wherever you are.

i need it, but i not sure if this will work with my HP 1945... somebody help me!!!!! please!!! Thanks .Mara

Pros: solid keyboard with no folding -- harder to damage than the Palm rendition.
The keyboard is slightly smaller than a normal keyboard so is a little hard to type comfortably for longer entries, but for most Palm entries, it works fine.
Cons: It is larger than practical for me for most uses since I got a palm to avoid carrying a laptop/bulky stuff. So while it is nice that is one solid piece, I don't use it as much as I would if it fit in my fanny pack.

I'm really impressed with this product.

First, it's about half the price of the Palm product (which I've used) and I like this one better. I prefer the one piece (non folding) construction - can't put it in your pocket, but easily fits in a briefcase or backpack. Just feels solid, whereas the folding ones feel flimsy. Excellent docking base for the Palm, supports it really well.

It came with some nice extras I wasn't expecting. It came with a full functioned Word Processer (complete with Spell check, a thesaurus) capable of saving in .doc format, then loading directly into Word upon HotSync. If bought by itself, this software is about the same price of the keyboard - here, it's a great free bonus. I also appreciate the fact that you can HotSync directly from the keyboard, something many other models don't do.

This is a great keyboard, and truly does make the Palm function more like a mini-laptop. Well worth it.

I use the Landware GoType! Keyboard for my Palm V, and it is just great! Not only is it great for typing, but when traveling it dobles as a hotsync cradle, it comes with cords for power and a serial cord for hot syncing.

It works, it simply works. I can pick up my pop email from any location with an analog phone connection. (watch out, many offices have digital phone systems, which will not like this little modem) And I can also send my pop email with some freeware available out there. So all in all a great product. I can even just peek on the server to see if any relevant email is waiting out there, or if it is spam and spam again. (i am using a commercial software for this feature, so be prepared to spend a bit more money) It is nice to sit in a hotel room somewhere far from home and to read email on your little palm V (or better Vx)... it feels like working on the very first macintosh. It is all very cute, and all the words in the emails seem really important. Hmm, but there must be other solutions. I could think of wireless solutions, or solutions which would use a cellphone as a wireless modem. (look ma, no wires)... This modem is a cute solution for the wired traveler. Emails feel very fuzzy and warm. And you can write them anywhere and then send them off from almost anywhere. Oh, and before i forget, yes, you can also surf the web. (using some other commercial software which is listed in the manual). Hmm, surfing the web on a palm is a completely different story. It just does not feel right. Amazon actually is quite surfable, but many other sites are not. It feels a bit like leaving the house but never crossing any streets. Not quite there yet, it seems. :*) Get it, if you insist. :*) I am keeping mine. I like it.

I love gadgets. My Palm Vx became a constant companion and vital part of my wardrobe, and the modem follows close behind. On business trips or any other time I'm on the road, it has served me very well. The ability to keep up to date on e-mail, news, and HotSync stuff while on the road, combined with a pre-paid phone card, means that I'll never need to lug around a giant laptop! Woohoo! (...)

Excellent service from Palm, shipped immediately, also at his expense shipped accessories as we didn't exchange e-mails in time,would recommend them highly.very prompt.