I don't know how much of this is relevant or interesting, but here are some random things about my PDA use (currently a Palm T3) off the top of my head, in no particular order:
- The amount of internal memory turned out to be irrelevant - when a 1GB SD card is AU$60, there's essentially no difference between 16MB onboard and 128MB onboard. - On Palm you can only read PDFs which have been converted on a PC first. I don't know about the Windows based PDAs. Just copying to the handheld doesn't cut it. Acrobat for Palm only has 2 zoom levels (zoomed or not zoomed), so most bus timetables are a pain to use. - Not having the ability to open the handheld's memory as a removable drive, or to organise files in that memory in folders was very annoying (I was used to being able to do so with WinCE). Once I bought an SD card and a card reader that became mostly no longer a problem (although some thing expect their documents to be copied across as part of a sync, rather than just put on the memory card - see PDF comment above). - Battery life is really really important. The T3's sucks. - I can no longer function without having my schedule on me all the time. - 98% of my use is contacts, schedule, a Swedish-English dictionary, writing myself quick notes (very handy for copying recipes) and (before the headphone jack broke) listening to music. (I used to also read ebooks on the bus, 320x480 is a perfectly good resolution to do that.) With this use it doesn't matter how good the processor is. - The T3 has a slider, so it's either a square 320x320 screen (write anywhere on the screen) or, if opened out a 320x480 with the bottom 1/3 either a dedicated writing area or just extra screen space. I almost never bother opening it, 320x320 is enough the majority of the time. - I do have a folding keyboard like that described by profmoriarty. It folds up to slightly larger than the PDA in its case. I've only used it once, to keep a travel journal in Melbourne, but it was really handy then. I find writing large amounts with the stylus pretty much impossible. It was free, I wouldn't have spent money on it. - For me a hard case is absolutely vital. I carry my PDA in my pocket everywhere, I managed to crack the screen of my last PDA (for which I didn't have a cover) doing so. I've had the current one for 2 years and the only damage is some scratches on the case, nothing on the PDA. - Screen protectors (that is to say a clear plastic sticker over the screen) are my friend. Looking at how scratched up my protectors get just from the stylus, I don't want to think about what the screen would look like by now. - I did have plans for keeping my email synchronised on my PDA so I'd always have easy access to it. Doing this over bluetooth turns out to be a pain in the neck, so I don't bother. With WiFi it would be much easier.
no subject
- The amount of internal memory turned out to be irrelevant - when a 1GB SD card is AU$60, there's essentially no difference between 16MB onboard and 128MB onboard.
- On Palm you can only read PDFs which have been converted on a PC first. I don't know about the Windows based PDAs. Just copying to the handheld doesn't cut it. Acrobat for Palm only has 2 zoom levels (zoomed or not zoomed), so most bus timetables are a pain to use.
- Not having the ability to open the handheld's memory as a removable drive, or to organise files in that memory in folders was very annoying (I was used to being able to do so with WinCE). Once I bought an SD card and a card reader that became mostly no longer a problem (although some thing expect their documents to be copied across as part of a sync, rather than just put on the memory card - see PDF comment above).
- Battery life is really really important. The T3's sucks.
- I can no longer function without having my schedule on me all the time.
- 98% of my use is contacts, schedule, a Swedish-English dictionary, writing myself quick notes (very handy for copying recipes) and (before the headphone jack broke) listening to music. (I used to also read ebooks on the bus, 320x480 is a perfectly good resolution to do that.) With this use it doesn't matter how good the processor is.
- The T3 has a slider, so it's either a square 320x320 screen (write anywhere on the screen) or, if opened out a 320x480 with the bottom 1/3 either a dedicated writing area or just extra screen space. I almost never bother opening it, 320x320 is enough the majority of the time.
- I do have a folding keyboard like that described by
- For me a hard case is absolutely vital. I carry my PDA in my pocket everywhere, I managed to crack the screen of my last PDA (for which I didn't have a cover) doing so. I've had the current one for 2 years and the only damage is some scratches on the case, nothing on the PDA.
- Screen protectors (that is to say a clear plastic sticker over the screen) are my friend. Looking at how scratched up my protectors get just from the stylus, I don't want to think about what the screen would look like by now.
- I did have plans for keeping my email synchronised on my PDA so I'd always have easy access to it. Doing this over bluetooth turns out to be a pain in the neck, so I don't bother. With WiFi it would be much easier.