PDAs

[chris_uk_83]

Does anyone have any experience with buying PDAs? I'm currently looking for one, preferably a SmartPhone so I don't need to carry two devices around and so I can offset the cost of the PDA against a mobile phone contract too.

At the moment I'm looking at a T-Mobile MDA compact III on Flext 20 with Web n' Walk, but at £27.50 a month for 18 months it's still a bit expensive for me. Any advice would be more than welcome .

[Freddie]

Does anyone have any experience with buying PDAs? I'm currently looking for one, preferably a SmartPhone so I don't need to carry two devices around and so I can offset the cost of the PDA against a mobile phone contract too.

At the moment I'm looking at a T-Mobile MDA compact III on Flext 20 with Web n' Walk, but at £27.50 a month for 18 months it's still a bit expensive for me. Any advice would be more than welcome .

Since 2000 I've owned two PDA's both of them HP Ipaq's. My newest one I brought whilst I was in Hong Kong in 2005 which has a Camera (which is rubbish), MS word, MS excel, Phone, Bluetooth and Wireless networking. I think it’s the Ipaq 6563 (I have to take the battery of to confirm), and it has its plus and minuses.

The minuses

- Rubbish camera limted to 680 x 480 and poor quality lens and focus
- I’ve found I have to keep resetting it because some I can’t enable features like Bluetooth
- The Bluetooth manager is appalling bad, scanning for other Bluetooth devices is an exercise in frustration.
- Replacement parts such as the styles (which I keep losing) are too expensive

The Pluses

- It makes for a cheap Sat Nav (all you need is a Bluetooth GPS device and software)
- Hand writing recognition has come on leaps and bounds over the years
- Lots of third party software support
- Syncs seamlessly with Microsoft outlook


I won’t be buying another one for while but if I was in the marketplace for a new Smartphone I would look at getting either the Nokia N95 or the iPhone.