[TriLUG] Maybe OT: PDAs

[David A. Cafaro]

Just my thoughts on a PDA.  I owned a Palm IIIx (had 4 megs of ram) for
almost 3 years and as my wife put it after one year "That is the most
useful electronic gizmo you ever bought!"  Previous to the Palm I had
tried paper planners and never really used them, but the Palm made it
easy, and I used it for notes, address, calender and my personal
pin/password safe (encrypted!).  For basic life organization I would
highly recommend the Palm based PDAs, they do it and they do it right. 
Graffiti isn't great, but I didn't have to much trouble getting used to
it.  Once use to it, it worked well enough for me.

Now if you are looking for something more powerful and capable of acting
more like a small computer, I would actually recommend the Sharp Zaurus
now.  I purchased the Zaurus to replace my Palm back in April and I love
it.  It handles all my old Palm needs, plus I now can listen to MP3's,
watch movies, surf the web and check email via Wi-Fi card, and it has a
beautiful color screen.  I had decided to go color and Multimedia to
replace my old Palm and it came down to the Zaurus and the Sony clie. 
The Zaurus won, based on the Linux platform, and the fact you can do
more than one thing at a time!  

The Zaurus had a ruff start in the beginning, but with the latest ROM
2.38 and with all the software out for it now, I don't find my self
lacking anything except Avantgo.  There is some sync ability with
Evolution, but you can also download their desktop software for Linux to
sync with your Zaurus.  I never synced my Palm with my Linux desktop, at
that point I wasn't fully linuxed on the desktop side.

Well good luck with your choice and don't forget to check out the
Zaurus:

www.myzuaurs.com (Official Zaurus Site)
http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/ (Un-Official Zaurus Software list)
http://www.zauruszone.com/howtos/index.shtml (Some answers about the Z)

Cheers,
David



On Tue, 2002-09-03 at 11:50, Douglas Kojetin wrote:
> Hi All-
> 
> This might be a bit off topic, but I'll throw in an "on topic" question 
> at the end!
> 
> I'm looking into getting a PDA, and wanted to get some advice from 
> people on the list (who might have one).
> 
> I was thinking of getting one of the following:
> 
> Handspring Treo 90
> Handspring Visor Pro
> Palm m500
> Palm m515
> Sony CLIE PEG-T615C
> 
> 1) Any comments on the thumb-board vs. Graffiti?
> 
> 2) Anyone know which of the above can by sync-ed into Linux?
> 
> 3) How long have you had one?  I'm afraid I may stop using it after 
> awhile -- which would be a waste of money -- but I'm still tempted.
> 
> Any other suggestions/comments are welcome -- and if you feel it's too 
> OT, feel free to reply to me only.
> 
> Thanks!
> Doug
> 
> 
> 
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