Wondering how many of you still use a PDA seperate of your cell phone.
I can’t believe it, but it’s going on two years since I’ve used my Palm pilot (Zire).
I used to swear by the thing, and it was always within arms reach. Without boring you all with the how and why it’s been so long since I’ve used what I had formerly considered possibly my most important business tool, I’m wondering what others do.
Bought a new PC over the weekend, and tried connecting the Palm to it. Software for the unit and Vista are incompatable, and there is no upgrade or patch to make it work.
Considering either a new PDA…..or perhaps a cell phone capable of the many apps a PDA handles. Family’s cell plan expires (hurrah!) in April, and I will be switching services and purchasing new phones.
Any of you found a model your happy with that pulls double duty? Or do you still carry both?
TIA.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Replies
Still using my Ipaq PDA from '05 religously. Hard to talk on the phone and use it as a PDA at the same time so as long as I can keep it running I'll be using it. I've got a bunch of spreadsheets/calculators in it that are critical to my daily tasks.
For synching it I'll stay with XP (have one Vista machine (pos)) as long as I can.
A palm pilot still comes in handy...
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Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
LOL....although that's ONE reminder I've never needed.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
LOLYou might want to use bigger print, though, so you don't have to squint<G>
"Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
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I had Palm Pilots since the III.
I finally had it with the 2-items-in-pockets-and-not-hat-I-needed syndrome, I bought (against my provider's advice) a Palm cell phone. It used all of my old apps, but that one (650) was just a terrible phone!
I switched over to Blackberry.
I'm on my 3rd.
My son has my original 8700 which is unlocked, and he uses it overseas with another provider's SIM card. It's almost 3 years old.
My wife now uses my 8300 Curve.
I got a Bold (old eyes need bigger screens) in October and I'm happy as a sow in a sty. It comes with Documents to Go, basic, a nice calender etc.
It's NOT as intuitive as a Palm, they were designed for different purposes. The Blackberry is a business communication device which has PDA capabilities, the Palm is a PDA.
That said, whomever can't figure out how to use both has never read the instruction book - USE SPEAKERPHONE OR AN EARPIECE LOL!
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I had one of the first phones with a built in Palm device. Didn't like it much. It was like 2 lbs of lead with a hamster-powered web connection. Ditched that and went back to the free phone that came with my service.
Got the iphone last Fall. Can't imagine life without it now. Seriously. Phone, PDA functions, iPod, email all in one place to start. Then apps like a construction master, GPS, level & plumb bob, stargazing navigation, restaurant finder, etc. just make life so much easier. I know there are a couple of guys here that keep their portfolio on it to show clients.
Did I mention that you can get the hockey scores on it?
So long as ATT has good reception where you are, I'd say it's a no-brainer.
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Yeah.....that's one of the ones I'm considering.
I'm hesitant on a few fronts....(a) Most of the folks I know that have them are "gadgeteers"....meaning, they tend to buy anything and everything techy that comes down the pike. Don't often own the same phone for more than a year. (My current phone is 3 years old....the one prior, was 5) (b) Will something like that hold up in my line of work. I don't trash my phone.....but dust, moisture and the occasional fall from up high are part of my everyday. (Beauty of the PDA, was that it sat safely in my sachel out of the line of fire until I pulled it out. Phone gotta be on my hip throughout the day).
Also, I had my Palm for quite a while.....longer than either of my most recent phones. Phone dies, PDA dies with it. If I end up going with new phone, or server, after contract expires, I'm risking losing the PDA all over again as well. Or else I'm kinda locking myself into a limited brand/style of phone.
Really like the Blackberry Storm, but have similar concerns.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Despite my line of work, I'm not a gadget freak. And before I saw an iphone I thought, how great could it possibly be. Visited a friend in NYC who is a gadget freak, and he's messing around with his iphone. GPS to find the restaurant for dinner, Google Earth to pull down a shot of my roofline, email, phone, etc. After that visit I was convinced by what it could do.Bluetooth lets you leave your phone in your pocket, out of the way, and take calls by hitting the earpiece. That thing is worth its weight in platinum as far as I'm concerned.mmoogie and Basswood have them and can better testify to their ability to withstand dust, etc.As long as you are close enough by, you could plug it into your radio, wear the earpiece, and watch as it automatically mutes the ipod when it senses an incoming call. Put it in a ziplock bag and you'd probably be as well protected from dust as you could expect.I'm pretty gentle with my gear. DW on the other hand ought to be spec'd with military grade anything so it can survive being bathed in mud, bounced off the floor, and so on. So far so good with her iphone.'Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it' ~ Chinese proverb
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I used to have Kyocera Palm/Phones. The orignal 6135 was a tank, (think palm III, welded onto a cell phone and you will be close). Kind of heavy, but mine survived a twenty foot drop onto a concrete slab, and still worked just fine.
It got replaced with a Kyocera 7135, a flip phone style, which I really liked. I lost it in a creek, while out doing a site survey.
The replacement on the insurance plan was a Palm Treo 700, pretty good. But, I really miss the grafiti, which is part of why I was using a Palm platform phone. The qwerty keyboard is a nightmare for me to use. I touch type, and have no idea where the keys really are in relationship to each other. I have added some second party software to mine. One that lets me synch it to the microsoft outlook, and another that lets me synch to my scheduling software.
I'm not sure what I would do with a gps system on my phone, and even though I could theoretically use it to browse the web, I never have. I guess if I traveled more, or lived in an urban area that those features might be nice to have.
Peeked at the Treos.......you'd really think the Palm site would have more in depth on the various functions of the different models.
One of the beauties of the web is not having to go to a store to look at an item.....maybe Palm feels if they getcha in there you'll buy?
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
I just got a Blackberry Curve. I absolutely love this thing! I now see why they call them crackberries because they are highly addictive.
It has all the apps you need and you can download even more. It is really designed to be super easy to navigate and use and has a full qwerty keyboard.
I refuse to accept that there are limitations to what we can accomplish. Pete Draganic
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Kind of funny you are vexing over this.
I went from daytimer (religiously for 15 years) to Palm (for 3 years) to Blackberry. (all in corp america)
When I started my own business, I went back to Palm (cost reasons) and then back to daytimer. My current schedule is a large 2 page per month so I can see the whole month at once and can plan better that way.
I just started this this month and so far so good but never imagined I would be going back to pencil and paper for my scheduling tasks.
(the phone book is still palm and most numbers are on the cell phone)
My cell phone is nothing but a phone. It's about 6 years old, came free with my service - no bluetooth, no camera, no multimedia, no e-mail. It does do text, but I don't use it. The writing is all worn off of the buttons, and a couple of them sometimes stick. But the UI for the phone book is extremely straightforward, and it does what I need, which is make and answer phone calls.
I used paper organizers for a long time (Week-At-A-Glance, mostly, sometimes a daily diary with nothing but the date and a bunch of lines, and Planner Pads for a while). Then I had a Sharp Wizard, which I really liked, until I dropped it off a roof and cracked the screen.
Then I got a Palm Tungsten E. The to-do items on the Palm could only have one category associated with them, unlike the Sharp, which could have up to, I think, four. Also, periodically the Palm would freeze after an alarm went off, causing the battery to drain, and there was no nonvolatile memory, so I'd lose everything and have to restore from backup on the PC (at least it did have that). I got a couple of aftermarket apps for the Palm, and grew rather fond of the thing.
Then I had the freeze/battery drain thing happen, and I couldn't charge and reset any more. It was out of warrantee but not very old, so when I got a replacement, I got the 2-year replacement service plan, and sure enough, I needed it about a year later.
It was replaced with a Tungsten E2, which had nonvolatile memory and was more stable (I also quit using the alarm feature). I've downloaded and used instructions for how to replace the non-user-serviceable battery once. My screen calibration has gotten out of whack and I've started having problems with an infinite loop when I try to recalibrate it, so I just tap about 1/16" to 1/8" lower on the screen than what I'm aiming at. I have several additional aftermarket apps on the E2, one of which I use heavily (Life Balance, a fancy to-do program). All in all, I've had the Palms for about 6 or 7 years, and I've been pretty happy with them.
I don't like the new phones. Too small, too cluttered, too fragile, too much stuff I don't need, too expensive in order to get what I *do* need.
Rebeccah
I've still got my IPAQ 3765 PDA, which is a "few years" old. Runs fine for what I do, and I had the memory / battery upgraded also.
Just lookin' to bump this thread.
I know we've discussed PDAs here before, and had more than a half dozen folks weigh in.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Yup. PDAs are now in the same bin as 8-tracks and the abacus.
HEY!
I still have an abacus.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
I'm a "Whatever phone is less than my free upgrade credit" kinda guy.
But a few guys I know have iPhones. Including the Captain who rode with me to the Hockey game tonight.
And about half of them? Have completely destroyed them in just a few short months.
And the other half? Can't wait for the contract to expire so they can go back to Verizon.
Great I guess if you're in the city................but two dead spots between Valley Forge and Philadelphia? multiple dead spots less then 45 minutes from Atlanta G.A.?