Yet another "which PDA should I buy?" thread!

D

Dan Smiffy

Guest
Hi all,

I've decided I need another toy in my life and want to buy a PDA. It needs a proper QWERTY keyboard to be able to edit large-ish (800k, 150 page) Word documents as well as send & receive emails via wifi from multiple access points (at home; at work; round suitably equipped mates' houses and ideally, hotspots around town) plus be able to use the web - streetmap and theaa.com's routeplanner mainly 'cos I'm always getting lost! In a perfect world it would also replace my crappy six year old Nokia mobile phone which I bought for my other half but got back when she got on "the mobile phone ladder". Ideally I would be able to put its Orange Talk50 sim in the new PDA, but if I needed to keep my mobile separate then never mind.

Could anybody please recommend some PDAs that tick all the above boxes to investigate? I've been to GSMarena.com which is fab I'm sure when you know a bit more about handsets and exactly what you want your new phone or PDA to do, but I'm not sure I'm sure to be honest. So any and all advice would be gratefully received!

Dan.
 
look around www.expansys.com
If they aint got it, its not worth worrying about.
All models are available sim free (costs more) or with a contract.
 
i progressed from having a pda and phone to all in 1 devices and ive had virtually the lot inc xda exec down to xda and everything in between, im currently settled with the mda vario think its a xda mini s, smaller than your normal pda/pdaphone but has the punch and all the features and a slidy out qwerty k/b underneath with is magic for texting etc has b/t, wifi,ir...like i said its fully loaded but isnt massive so you dont look like a clown walking round town with it on your ear.

Pete:smashin:
 
Thanks both. PeteB (or indeed anybody) have you edited large Word documents using a PDA? That's the bit I'm mostly concerned about since it's the thing I'll be using it for for most of the time. I assume all PDAs running Windows programs run exactly the same operating system and software, albeit faster or slower depending on the spec of the machine - is Word on a PDA exactly the same as using Word on a PC except you have to scroll left and right round your documents as well as up and down? Sorry if this is a daft question! And I downloaded a "Scriptsmart" suite of macros and styles from the BBC website and installed that in Word on this laptop, should be able to install the same thing on a PDA?

Ealier on Mrs Smiffy reminded me that I've got fat sausage fingers, bless 'er, so what's the PDA that does all I need it to do in post #1 that has the biggest keyboard? I rarely make calls during the day so wouldn't mind if I looked a fool on the rare occasion I had to, so long as the flipside is a big keypad to minimise typos. I s'pose my best bet would be to go into town and have a play in a mobile phone shop but those places terrify me. Also I want to buy a phone outright rather than a subsidised one and sign up to a gawd-knows-how-much-a-month tarrif - up front money's not really an object, I did some subcontracted work for a bloke who got paid for it via Bartercard and so now I have 750 barterpounds to spend in his catalogue. Short of hiring a limo to get us to Sainsburys every week until the balace has run out I can't find anything else in there sensible to fritter the money on!

Cheers,

Dan.
 
Similar to PeteB's post.
I have had just about every combination of seperate pda + phone and then went to "all in one" devices, and I have had most of those too.
My favourite (but it's not perfect by any means) is the Treo 650 i.e running Palm OS rather than Windoze which I have tried hard to like, but can't.
The Treo has a great keyboard, but wouldn't be too good for the "sausage fingers"
As for editing word documents, you can do it on almost all of them, but to be honest, I think much editing on a small screen would be pretty painful.
 
you really need to check them out yourself in reality, spending that much money warrants it, but you will find buying second hand a better bargain, I bought mine off the classified adverts on here for £200. As for Word I wouldnt fancy tapping away for a long time, dont get me wrong I send looong txts and its fantastic using the keyboard, but its "Pocket Word" so its not the same as your pcs version obviously the pc version will be a lot more functional, you really need to do your research but defo give the MDA Vario a lookin Ive not found anything better in todays market including XDA exec (too big and bulky).
Its the only gadget I use now for a mobile/games/roaminging internet wifi connection/satnav/mp3 player/using it for movies

Pete
 
Hiya, you're all correct of course, I really need to use one of these things to make sure they're good enough for editing the documents I want to before shelling out on one, even if it is only with toy-town money. With that in mind I went into Carphone Warehouse this lunchtime and had a play with an XDA Exec but it was a straight-out-of-the-box unsetup one and I couldn't see Word in action, however I am now convinced its keyboard is big enough for my fat fingers. So if anybody in London reading this has an Exec / JASJAR / QTEC9000 or any of the other names it sells for and could spare 10mins I'd be really grateful if I could nip over and try to edit one of my documents on your phone! Pretty please?! :thumbsup:

Dan.
 

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