Quote:
Originally Posted by Seahawk
I would like the following Holy Grail of PDAs:
- All common data that exists on the laptop: Email (ability to file email on the mothership, delete and clean as well), calendar, contacts, etc.
- Ability to sync with mothership.
- Workable viewing of Power Point Briefs, excel spreadsheets and MS Word. Some ability to edit same.
- Good human factors on data entry.
- Ability to surf the web, focused on travel emergencies, so access to airline websites, weather, hotel and rental car websites. Pelican would be a bonus (for me, anyway).
- Long battery life, at least three hours constant use.
- Phone.
What I do not need:
- I don't take music with me nor do I need video. Pics of the kids would be nice.
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WM6: Get a HTC TyTN II (aka the AT&T Tilt). It has all of the capabilities you ask for. If the e-mail server you are connecting to is an Exchange 2003 or later server, MS-Active Sync will allow a real time, blackberry like syncing of e-mail, contacts and calender. If you are doing extensive e-mailing, and not so much texting, the slide out keyboard will be a plus. It has Wifi for highspeed connections when in range of a hotspot, and it has highspeed 3G capability. You get video and music capability. It has the ability to take expansion cards, so you can have a library of music, videos, and data, swappable on demand.
If you do a lot of texting (no surface to place the unit available), or need 1 hand typing at times, the slide out keyboard of the TyTN II will not work for you.
It has swappable batteries. I do lust after this model, but I don't think it will work for my type of usage. I do quite a bit of short e-mails, where I may not have a surface.
Palm OS: (Treo 680 and very soon GSM Centro) It will do everything you want, but there are no 3G or phones incorporating wifi. Most of them are very good for texting, with the thumbboard. They also will allow viewing and editing of Power Point, Word and Excel and viewing of PDF. The software library for Palm is extensive. The interface is very easy, but quite dated. It also allows swapping of cards, has built in capability for music and videos. Edge internet (2.5G) is not too bad and the Treo680 and Centro have addressed the earlier browser problems of the Treo650.
I use an 8GB SD card in my Treo680. I use Exchange Active sync with e-mail and e-mails arrive on the phone before my desktop. Power - with the latest software update, the 680 will go all day long even with extensive use. No where near as good as a Blackberry, but you can swap batteries.
Price: Treo 680 will run about $300 unlocked on E-bay. An unlocked TyTN II runs over $500.
Service: AT&T has 3G, T-Mobile does not. T-Mobile costs less and the mobile roaming charges are usually less. If you know how to setup the data plan, you can have an unlimited worldwide data with T-mobile.
If you get the TyTN, get the AT&T service and 3G. If you go with a Treo680, go with T-Mobile and a Blackberry International data plan.