What's a good PDA for less than $150?

paulr

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Re: What\'s a good PDA for less than $150?

Ask the recipient what kind they want. There are big differences between them, and the person may have a strong preferences.
 

Sean

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Re: What\'s a good PDA for less than $150?

[ QUOTE ]
paulr said:
Ask the recipient what kind they want. There are big differences between them, and the person may have a strong preferences.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's too easy! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I was thinking of this one:
Sony CLIE
 

Silviron

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Re: What\'s a good PDA for less than $150?

Sorry I don't really have any experience specific to your criteria....

I recently bought a Palm Tungsten E @ $199. It is pretty neat for what it is, but I was confused thinking that it was a Tungsten 3 and I was getting a great deal....

Anyway, it depends on what your giftee needs to use it for. Note taking, scheduling, and stuff that a 50 cent paper notepad can be used for will be provided by any of the PDA's

But you really need to spend at least $350 to get anything that is REALLY useful. I don't see much use for any of them that aren't "connectible" through WiFi or modem. So far all I have used my PTE for is reading downloaded PDF books, Acrobat Docs and listening to Audible book downloads.

A $30.00 portable CD player and a couple of paperbacks would do the same thing.
 

PhotonBoy

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Re: What\'s a good PDA for less than $150?

For standalone stuff: just buy a Sharp ~$30 256K organizer.

For connected stuff: buy a phone with PDA capabilities.

Expensive standalone PDAs are biting the dust. (Steve Jobs knew that. He probably didn't anticipate the phone connection.)
 

Wingerr

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Re: What\'s a good PDA for less than $150?

I've got an older monochrome Sony Clie, the S-360, and it's been working fine so far- I bought a 128M MS card for it, but ended up taking it out and using in my digicam instead because I haven't had a need for it, with the 16MB built in RAM being sufficient for my purposes- I've still have half of the memory free, and I store everything on it- I offload my brain to it as secondary storage to make more room- /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
I use it strictly for data storage, though, not pictures and games, which is why it's working out fine-
I considered getting the SJ22 myself, but just couldn't justify it, since mine's still working well, and I like the long battery life of the mono display.
One must-have accessory that you might consider if it's going to someone who can type is a Stowaway keyboard- works really well and you can type full speed on it with no problems.
 

PhilAlex

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Re: What\'s a good PDA for less than $150?

Since it's a gift, you can't go with my suggestion:

PSION 5.

Double A batteries, 40 HOUR lifespan, Best keyboard on the planet, not that big.

-P
 

logicnerd411

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Re: What\'s a good PDA for less than $150?

Anything Palm OS 4.1 right now is getting cheaper. The Sony Clie you mentioned is a great gift - There is no audio/video for that Palm, so no multimedia applications. Also, if they don't need color, you can try the Palm Zire 91 (I forgot if it's 91, but not 71).

//Dan
 

Sean

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Re: What\'s a good PDA for less than $150?

How do these things hook up to the PC? I mean, do these come with programs that work on your PC were you type in the info, and then USB it to the PDA? Or do these only sync with Outlook and programs like that?

What programs can you sync a PDA with?
 

Wingerr

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Re: What\'s a good PDA for less than $150?

The Clie has a USB cable, and you run the PIM program on the PC, which essentially mirrors what you have on the PDA. You can copy and paste text from a website, for example, into a memo on the PC, and when you hit the Hotsync button, everything gets transferred to and fro, so that they both mirror each other again.
You can sync with Outlook to read your mail and write responses on the PDA, and when you sync up next time, it'll send them out- I generally don't do it because the volume of emails gets to be too much to want to read on the PDA screen.
 

Prolepsis

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Re: What\'s a good PDA for less than $150?

Hi Sean,

Since you gave the example of Palm OS PDA, you can find tons of reviews and information here: PalmInfocenter

You can sync multiple programs with a PDA. My father uses his mostly for appointments, phone numbers, and so on. You install a thick client on your computer and you can either type in address information (for example) on either the computer or in the PDA.

You can also find lots of shareware, freeware, and other payware programs for a Palm. Almost a full-time job to look for software for a Palm /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

With my Tungsten T3, it came with lots of extra programs, including the ability to read electronic books, view PDFs, and so on. And, for both Pocket PCs and Palm OS systems, they usually come with some sort of Microsoft Word/Excel editor/pocket version.

Cheers,
eric t
 
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