A while back there was a thread talking about which PDA did you want next. It occurred to me that with the latest purchase of my new PDA (Tungsten T3), this was my 10th different Palm purchase. I have probably had 13-15 PDAs of one type or another all told, but have only purchased Palms since they came out.

They are in order:
PalmPilot Personal
Palm III
Palm V
Palm Vx
Palm m505
Palm m515
Sony Clie NR-70
Sony Clie NX-60
Sony Clie NX-80
Palm Tungsten T3

I like the T3 because of form factor (read: size) and the amount of built in memory. As I started to think about 6-9 months from now I wondered what the next one will be.

Will I break down and buy a PPC?
Will I think about getting one of the last remaining Clie's (hopefully at bargain basement prices)?
Will the T3 last me more than 1 year?
Will it be a convergence device (e.g. Treo 600)?
What do I really want?

What are your thoughts?
Will

13-15 PDAs? You're crazy! Or just way too rich ;)

I've had only TWO PDA's so far:
- Palm Vx (my girlfriend uses it now);
- Sony Clie 760C (my last and still current one!).

The same question plagues my mind right now: What is my next PDA going to be?

The Clie TH55 looks very attractive still, and comes relatively cheap (~$340). Then again, do you really want to buy a Clie now - knowing that Sony stopped focusing on PDAs (at least for the Western Hemisphere)? Then there is the rumor about the new T4 (Sunshine just posted (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1925) some news about it). The specs sound very interesting, and I also liked the form factor of the T3.

On the other hand there are those new PPCs coming out almost every other day. Have you played with one of those with a 480-by-640-pixel (VGA) screen (like the one of the Toshiba e805)? The screen is simple gorgeous! I haven't used it in practice yet, but I am sure be a great screen for reading eBooks.

I am not so interested in the whole convergence story. In fact, I still don't entirely trust cell phones (have you read today's Inquirer article (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16873) how latest research claims that mobile phones can reduce sperm count? - not that I am paranoid about cell phones, but is it really necessary to use them when I spend 80% of my time reading eBooks and browsing the Web with my PDA)?

I am thinking of another option you haven't mentioned. I could buy a low-end PDA and in addition to it buy a dedicated eBook reader. I know the Sony Librie received some bad press, especially because of its restrictive DRM protection, but as soon as someone breaks it and the device becomes available in my country, I'd seriously consider buying it!

Well, the thing that's stalling me right now is the market itself. I never even bothered with OS5 (Garnet). I still have a 4.1 device. And now that we're still not sure that OS6 will be able to upgrade anything besides the T3, why chance it?

I also don't like to feel like I'm at the mercy of Palm (I refuse to call them PalmOne, btw... Ack! I just did... but that was merely as an explanation. Does that count? hehe) and their upgrade decisions. It's as if the Wizard of Oz is granting my one wish, and I'm clicking my heels, chanting, "There's nothing like Cobalt, there's nothing like Cobalt...."

For now, I've got my smartphone, and my discomforted Clie that is out of memory and it's working okay. I'm still convinced that Sony is just going to integrate Clie functions into Ericsson phones after Cobalt is finally released and come up with a line of products that will make us all pant.


Btw, sperm count? ROFL.

The updated Treo that is soon to come out has me interested. However, my civilian employer does not allow cameras within it's buildings. That is of course, their rules and their perogative. I want to remain employed, so I follow their rules. :D However, if they could do a Treo with a 320x480 screen, with a slider for a thumboard and at least 64mb ram and an SD card slot (no camera, too) I'd be hard pressed to say No to upgrading and paying Sprint the $250 early upgrade fee-penalty.

:D Life would be fun if they (the major corporations) would just listen to us, eh?

I own a far better digital camera than my Clie NX80 possesses. I don't need a voice recorder. I have a cell phone but service in the backwoods of NH is so poor ("Can ANYONE here me, now?") I rarely use it.

I DO need AT LEAST a 480x320 landscapable screen for bookreading. It would also help with writing. As would a useful keyboard.

My hope: A palmOS clamshell device with a functioning keyboard -- ala the Psions. How about a shrunk-down eMate running PalmOS6+? Something that size can buildin wireless or just leave me a slot. Or three.

APPLE, ARE YOU LISTENING??

Feel the pull of the dark side.... get a PPC....

Seriously, I've never looked back after getting my ipaq. I still play with my Clie occassionally, but it now gets far more use from my 7 year old daughter playing draughts (yanks call it checkers :D).

I sometimes miss the slightly higher resolution, but I can do so much more, and so much easier with the PPC. The range of software is excellent, and it handles one of my favourite uses (emulation) perfectly. I now walk around with a C64, Apple II, Atari ST, NES, SNES, ZX Spectrum and MSDOS 6.22 386/486 in my pocket. I just need a bigger storage card to fit all I want on it!

Craig (the converted)

I'll be thinking about my next upgrade when there's a Palm OS smartphone that's out in the market with a 320x480 screen, built-in wifi, bluetooth, lots of RAM and expansion card options. And it's gotta have a built-in camera at least 1.0 megapixel. I keep a mobile blog, and the camera will come in handy. When it comes to Palm OS, the choices for smartphones out there are (IMHO) quite disappointing.

I've been thinking about whether it's feasible for me to switch to PPC, but I've got too much data in my Palm OS pda. Transferring all that data to a new OS would be a pain.

I was concerned about my switch to PPC from Palm, but it turned out to be fairly painless. The only real thing I miss is Documents To Go. Pocket Word and Excel really don't match it.

Craig,

You mentioned that you are an active user of emulators on your PPC. I've been hearing a bunch of stirrings about emulators on the PalmOS side also. However, since I'm not a big fan of them I haven't tested them. SUPPOSEDLY, they are compatible on OS4 and above, et al.

If you still have your old Palm around, to go www.freewarepalm.com and do a quick search. By the way, there is a PPC related site linked from there for MS PPC platforms, for freeware applications. Since I havne't used a PPC device in over 4 years, I haven't bothered looking at it though.

Just thought I'd mention.

Thanks for the heads-up, derekweb. I'll check it out, though I don't know how well I'll emulate on my 33Mhz T615C (though I do have an apple and zx-spectrum already installed on it, they are _slow_).

Craig.

Thanks for the heads-up, derekweb. I'll check it out, though I don't know how well I'll emulate on my 33Mhz T615C (though I do have an apple and zx-spectrum already installed on it, they are _slow_).

Craig.

*blinks* ... um, you might not want to get your hopes up on that. Despite the fact that what youre trying to emulate was ... what, only 8mhz at best? ... I'd still be skeptical of the results when you're hosting on a 33mhz device. I thought that the T615c was at least 66mhz though? ... Wasn't it? Dang, which one was it then that Sony put out that was? Mind wipe! I hate it when I skip class on those days.

:D

Then again, you could *always* upgrade to a PalmOne Tungsten T3 and do the emulation TRUE justice. Besides, when Doom POS comes out later this year, it's gonna really rock on a 400mhz 320x480 screen! :D

*blinks* ... um, you might not want to get your hopes up on that. Despite the fact that what youre trying to emulate was ... what, only 8mhz at best? ... I'd still be skeptical of the results when you're hosting on a 33mhz device. I thought that the T615c was at least 66mhz though? ... Wasn't it? Dang, which one was it then that Sony put out that was? Mind wipe! I hate it when I skip class on those days.

:D

Then again, you could *always* upgrade to a PalmOne Tungsten T3 and do the emulation TRUE justice. Besides, when Doom POS comes out later this year, it's gonna really rock on a 400mhz 320x480 screen! :D

I already play Doom (gfdoom) and Quake (pocketquake) on my ipaq :p

Quake 2 is possible too, though not for me and my 128MB storage card...

Emulation is much better on my 200Mhz ipaq. And it's one of the slower machines. Typical processor speeds are 400MHz at the moment (and you can routinely overclock that to approx 530MHz with no drama)

With the Clies, the T615 had the 33MHz dragonball processor, and the T665 had the 66MHz processor.

Craig.

I already play Doom (gfdoom) and Quake (pocketquake) on my ipaq :p

Quake 2 is possible too, though not for me and my 128MB storage card...

Emulation is much better on my 200Mhz ipaq. And it's one of the slower machines. Typical processor speeds are 400MHz at the moment (and you can routinely overclock that to approx 530MHz with no drama)

With the Clies, the T615 had the 33MHz dragonball processor, and the T665 had the 66MHz processor.

Craig.

I remember that the PPC platform was always good about having a sheer hugely large volume of games available. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they even have a direct port of Lara Croft already on the PPC? This part is something that I have always envied.

However, on the PalmOS side, I'm surprised that companies like Tapwave and PalmOne haven't been clamoring more to get more and better FPS and RTS games out there. There is only ONE decent RTS, and even that in the reviews looks like it could use some help. I would love something like Rise of Nations or Warcraft or that ilk to be ported. Heck, I'm not even biased, port them to BOTH POS and PPC. :D

I myself run a T3 and have it generally underclocked to 200mhz. The app I've got will let me specify a specific app for more or less speed if it demands it (like Kinoma Video Player, I've got that one alone set to stay at 400mhz, everything else defaults to 200mhz.). Saves a LOT of battery life ... something which is the only drawback of the T3. :shy:

There is a tomb raider port, which is apparantly very good (I haven't bought it.... yet). People are running Warcraft on PPC's with Dos emulators now. Age of Empires is also available as a direct port. :)

Battery life is my biggest bugbear too. If only battery developers could keep up with the chip makers <sigh>

I have a Tungsten E that is mostly used for news and books (using Plucker now, BTW, and have been very happy with it) primarily, but also info management, etc. I would love a bigger screen, but I'm very happy with the resolution and color. Wireless would be nice too. In general I'm very happy with the T|E but I do think about the future. I have a hard time with the PPC in general because I just don't use that power. I'm eager to see the Linux PDAs rise, and to see where that will go. Alex, I agree with your comments. The only thing I like about convergence is one less thing to carry. I would love a good ebook reader and low level PDA, but the Libre is just too big for me. I'd need a pocket sized version. But being able to read in daylight would be great. In summary, I'm looking for what the next "value" models will be, in the same way as the T|E rounds out the bottom of the Tungsten line. I really can't say enough how much I've enjoyed it.

So, my thoughts. Good thread. cbarnett the emulation stuff sounds rockin'; I hadn't realized how far along it was. Alex should we have a forum? Could be some really interesting threads if it got going...

A forum specifically on emulations? Sounds interesting. The way we do it with new forum sections right now is to first accumulate postings on that specific topic and then move those topics in a newly opened section. If there is general interest, I am happy to add another section!

Greets

I like this idea. I spend a lot of time mucking around with emulators, especially on my ipaq. I imagine you'll need to split PPC and Palm up as well...

Craig.

I'm vaguely interested in emulation, but can't say that I've got the time to invest in pursuing it whole-heartedly. BUT I would love to watch the threads go by. Craig, looks like you'll need to drive some traffic here, and/or activate some latent emulators lurking around here.

I'm not sure how much I could contribute to the palm side of things, emulator-wise, these days. I just don't use the Clie for that sort of thing.

I can try, though! :D

Craig.

I'm sure the PPC side of it would be enough to get it going. It only took a few chunky threads on sitescooper to get Alex interested enough to start a forum. It hasn't exactly been hopping, but I think that it's been useful for a lot of people...

My next PDA was going to be an OS6 Clie until Sony decided to make the Clie abandonware. I always considered the Tapwave Zodiac an interesting device, something that the Clie always wanted to be.

The timing of Sony announcing the discontinuation of the Clie line and Zodiacs showing up in CompUSA stores couldn't have come at a better time. I was hesitant to buy one sight unseen and made a few visits to check out the Zodiac. I was impressed with the device despite the locked demo units in the displays. The slim anodized aluminum body struck me instantly, other PDAs (especially the lower end PPCs) feel cheap and flimsy in comparison. I made the switch and bought a Zodiac 2 last week. You get a lot of device for the money, and I think the Zodiac has real potential as a "mobile entertainment console" in addition to its PDA/PIM functionality.

The main thing I find lacking is a Wifi solution, and that's more PalmSource's fault than Tapwave's.

As a former Clie NX70V owner, I would strongly urge those Clie owners looking to get a new Palm OS PDA to give the Zodiac some serious consideration.

My next PDA was going to be an OS6 Clie until Sony decided to make the Clie abandonware. I always considered the Tapwave Zodiac an interesting device, something that the Clie always wanted to be.

The timing of Sony announcing the discontinuation of the Clie line and Zodiacs showing up in CompUSA stores couldn't have come at a better time. I was hesitant to buy one sight unseen and made a few visits to check out the Zodiac. I was impressed with the device despite the locked demo units in the displays. The slim anodized aluminum body struck me instantly, other PDAs (especially the lower end PPCs) feel cheap and flimsy in comparison. I made the switch and bought a Zodiac 2 last week. You get a lot of device for the money, and I think the Zodiac has real potential as a "mobile entertainment console" in addition to its PDA/PIM functionality.

The main thing I find lacking is a Wifi solution, and that's more PalmSource's fault than Tapwave's.

As a former Clie NX70V owner, I would strongly urge those Clie owners looking to get a new Palm OS PDA to give the Zodiac some serious consideration.

Hi Ballistic! Great to see you over here. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on a lot of subjects.

I've thought about the Zodiac route myself because I need to replace my SJ33 soon. But I'm hoping to hold out for OS6, and after the Sony thing, I'm hoping to stay mainstream.

But Zodiac has a lot going for it, and has a lot of potential for the future, especially for gamers. I'm really hoping it catches on. Would love to see Zodiac come out with an OS6 clamshell in the future.

At any rate, I'm expecting I'll have something or other by Christmas. But gee... it's hard to wait!

As an aside -- since I know you follow the industry talk about Sony pretty closely-- I read that the Toshiba/Sony LCD plant is ready to produce. But all that speculation about it being for the PSP seems to be off-mark because PSP won't be around for a while, and the plant (at least for now) is aimed at larger size screens.

BobR (aka Bobbert)

Hi Ballistic! Great to see you over here. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on a lot of subjects.

Thanks BobR. There are a number of great discussions and interesting topics over here.

Another note about the Zodiac: It comes bundled with PalmReader for ebooks and I installed Handstory and Repligo (two of my favorite apps). All three of these apps support the Zodiac's portrait and landscape orientation in full screen. I haven't tried iSilo or Plucker yet or researched their Zodiac compatibility. Overall, the Zodiac makes an excellent platform for music, videos, games, audio books (the stereo speakers put out a lot of dbs and it has a true stereo headphone jack) and ebooks.

Hopefully there will be an OS6 device (the first most likely now a PalmOne, unlike OS5 ;) ) by September and I'm hoping PalmOne offers a high end OS6 device without the TT's slider (one of the main reasons I chose Zodiac over the TT3).

Good luck in your quest. I look forward to future discussions.

Ballistic

As an aside -- since I know you follow the industry talk about Sony pretty closely-- I read that the Toshiba/Sony LCD plant is ready to produce. But all that speculation about it being for the PSP seems to be off-mark because PSP won't be around for a while, and the plant (at least for now) is aimed at larger size screens.

BobR (aka Bobbert)

Maybe a Vaio U80??