Well, I've finally done it... I've pretty much got everything on my PPC and the Palm is sitting idle. (But I don't dare let it out of arm's reach yet!)
The real test will come next week when I go back to work and I'll see if I can make it work for me in the "real" world. I feel okay about it so far, but there are some areas that I'm still uncomfortable with...
1) Input - I'm pretty much depending on a fitaly demo right now, but I think I'm going to plunk down a few bucks for registration unless I find a better alternative before it runs out. There's still a few things I haven't tried. I might also get that full screen software keyboard instead of an external keyboard. It should be good for document typing or long notes. Probably not so good for quick screen entries, though. One less thing to carry. I can finger peck pretty fast, and the screen protector should keep the screen nice even if I beat it up a bit.
One problem I'm facing is that I get an infrequent, but common double strike on the regular screen keyboard and with fitaly. Anyone ever experience that, or know if there's a way to fix it?
2) File locations - I'm not real comfortable yet with where everything is, and even less comfortable with where programs look for files, and how to set that up. This will take a little time. iSilo is the biggest problem for me right now, but I'm pretty confident that will work its way out. Some combinations of folders and shortcuts and categories should certainly be enough to solve that issue.
3) Backups - Doing an activesync backup followed by a copy of FlashROM followed by a copy of my SD card is not quick and easy. I'll look into other options later.
4) Magic Button - I don't know why, but I seem to close it accidently whenever I try to use it. Or maybe it conflicts with the Toshiba app I use, which is kind of combo close utility, today app and launcher.
5) AvantGo - It runs really slow and in my opinion awkwardly in Pocket IE. But on the positive side, I did figure out that you can keep the sync channel live and leave the settings...properties...connect to server checkbox unchecked until I really want to sync. That is a quick change that doesn't force activesync to do it's slow "wonder if anything changed that I need to know about" routine.
6) I'm going to miss some of the miscellaneous programs I got used to having. The biggest one is Patience, which is the best solitaire game I've seen on any platform and it's freeware. The neat thing about it is that you can play a card in just about any situation by double-tapping it. Plus it's simple to use, easy to see the cards and it's responsive. Others are utilities that do tips, counting, scorekeeping, stopwatch, etc.
7) Pocket Informant - It looks nice, but I haven't really used it. Especially when I really need it.
8) eSword is nice and I love the commentaries and dictionaries integrated with it. I even discovered the Modern KJV that I didn't know about before. But it is relatively slow to start up. My old Clie with MyBible was much zippier.
9) The whole memopad/notes thing is disappointing. Mostly because it seems I have to use folders to organize them instead of categories like in outlook on the desktop. Kind of a pain. I may have to splurge on seperate software for this also. Only thing is that I "have to" have a desktop for this and I'd rather it be Notes in Outlook. Might have to rethink that, though, because Notes in Outlook aren't especially great either. Maybe I'll try PhatNotes pro with the desktop and since it does hierarchies, maybe I can replace both Notes and Noterrific. BTW Noterrific is a really slick and very simple outliner with desktop companion that's freeware! Nothing will satisfy me after the wonderful ShadowPlan, but Noterrific will do for now.
10) That nagging feeling like I have to think more and work harder everytime I try to do anything on my PPC. I don't think it will go away completely, but it should get better. I guess I'm always going to be a Palm biggot deep inside
Unless another great platform pops up, e.g. if some form of Linux PDA supporting touch screen PDAs becomes popular and gets a lot of available software.
11) The other nagging feeling of all the software I'm leaving behind. I didn't really use any of the other stuff that much, but you know how it is when you don't have something. You feel like your missing it even if you wouldn't use it!
12) Finally, the whole "can I really use it quickly without too much distraction when I really need it?" Time will tell!
And for some balance, things I like about my new PPC...
1) It's fun to have a new toy
2) It's great hardware. Nice feel to it. Charging light. Cool up down switch kind of like the old Clie thumbwheels, but better. Decent battery. It's just fun to use. Nice bright screen. And like Craig said, I am starting to get used to reading on it. But VGA would be better...
3) I can now use a 1gig storage card. I like the flexibility. If my internal Flash ROM was bigger (e.g. about 256meg) then I could keep everything "important" internally and swap out SD cards at will. As it is, I had to do some installs on the SD card and keep some basic stuff like pdfs and iSilo docs and ebooks there, so I don't know how upset Windows ME would get if it tried to find something missing. (Or if it would "remember" it's not there next time and mess me up later.)
4) Some things are much more powerful. The better hardware is not completely wasted with MS inefficiencies
5) I'm using a current OS now. I had been using PalmOS4 and watching the world pass me by with all the OS5-only apps coming out. Even though this PPC is not a recent model, I'm running 2003SE, and haven't seen anything that I can't use except for programs that need wireless, of course.
6) There's sure to be a lot I can do on this PDA that I haven't discovered yet. I look forward to find things that are helpful.
7) I discovered a couple new games. Bought a copy of Gamebox Asia and Gamebox Gems. Pretty nice. Don't know if they have staying power, but they're great entertainment for now. I think I'll limit myself on the games. Both $$ and time are too scarce to be wasting them on games, even though it's very tempting!
8) I like using Outlook on the desktop, and have set up my PPC to do mail sending and receiving when I dock with the desktop. I did it for a while on my Clie, but it was more trouble than it was worth so I removed it.
9) eWallet is working out well.
10) Adobe Reader is not perfect, but at least it's usable on my PPC. That's a nice benefit. The extra speed really helps out here. Still slow, but okay. On my Clie it was unbearable. I'd get something like Repligo, but the $$ are adding up too fast.
11) I transferred my Handy Shopper stuff from Palm by just copying the database over to PPC. Pretty neat!!!!!
12) It gets me a cool PDA when PalmOne didn't really have any models that suited me (because the T5 had some problems on rollout), and future models will probably have their own problems because of OS6/Cobalt compatibility issues. I never would have switched if PalmOne made a decent T5-like PDA, but having to wait so long and then finding all the problems with it and the high price were just too much. I'm glad I made the switch, but I really miss PalmOS.
BTW, anyone still reading this and finding it interesting? I'm having fun writing it, but I know the posts are growing long, so I should probably stick to just a few short comments if people aren't getting anything out of this. It's always hard to tell what people are interested in, or want to see.