Page 1 of Palm handhelds - which is the best to get?

I own a Psion Revo, and want to get a Palm now. Which is the best to get? I would say price doesn`t matter, as long as it is value for money.

Don`t get a battery powered one. If money`s no object then I guess you`d be unlikely to anyway, but just to be sure - don`t get a battery powered one.

I think Palms are pretty good, if you go for the best one you can afford you probably won`t go far wrong, so long as it`s not battery powered.

Oh, and don`t get a battery powered one.

I own a Sony Clie - stylish , slim and loads of Palm software availbale for it. Also, there is a huge range of Clie models out there from the basic SL models upto the all singing all dancing NX70v and I think even newer models coming out soon.

A few friends have iPAQs and other `Pocket` PC devices but they are all much bulkier than my Palm. For me getting thant Windows look is not worth the extra weight you have to carry around.

Pistol, How will it work without batteries?

Steam powered, or by a mouse in a wheel.

What is the Zire like - the £79.99 budget one?

Have a look in Staples/Comet/PC World at the Palm m130. These are being sold off - new range is coming out. The m130 is £140 in most of these places now. It`s full colour, Palm OS 4.1 with an SD card slot. If you get Documents To Go software for it, you can create, edit and synchronise MS Office files (Excel, Word and PowerPoint), it syncs with Outlook and you can get no end of free games and utils if you search the web.

Will do. :)

I`ve have a Palm IIIXE a IIIC and my wife has Handspring Visor Platinum. Colleagues at work use Palm M105s. No one has seen a need to upgrade to the modern generation ( M125, M130, 505, 515, Tungsten)

The reason, I suspect, is that PDAs are great:

organisers,
notetakers,
address books,
ebook readers,
e-mail readers, and
Avanto Go clients

and thats about it. Spreadsheets and Wordprocessing are possible but not pleasant experiences. The same goes for games other than Tetris.

To do all the things that Palms are good at you need 8mb, a monochrome screen, OS 3.5 or above and nothing else.

I think the older battery powered Palms ar by far the best for these jobs. Ask anyone who uses them in real life especially on the move. No one want to lug around a power supply, an International adaptor and a docking cradle to charge the thing up, it defeats the idea of a palm top being all you need. Unfortunatly that rules out all the modern Palms including the the Zire and my IIIc which is gathering dust.

That leaves you with the M105, which is tough and practical but has a small screen and of course there are all the Palm IIIXEs on Ebay.

In my opinion the nicest option are the battery powered Hanspring Visors. My wifes Platinum is faster than the equivilent Palm (the IIIXE) and has USB for fast data update. A pair of Alkaline batteries should last you about 6 weeks and with twelve AAAs selling for £1.50 its as cheap as chips to run. I think the Visor Platinum became the Visor Neo and that might still be available.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 25th March 2003, 20:49

You dont need to carry chargers etc around with you anymore if you get a modern Palm with USB.

You just buy a USB Hotsync+Charge cable and as long where you go you have a USB port you can charge the Palm via the USB port - no drivers needed.

On Ebay you can buy these tiny pocket sized retractable USB sync + charge cables for the Palm, Clie etc.