New PDA

November 3, 2006

So, I'm thinking of getting a new PDA. Probably a Dell Axim or HP iPaq, since they're probably the most common and threfore the cheapest, but maybe a Sony Clie--they look pretty nice.

UPDATE: Got one! Read more below.

Features I want:

• bluetooth
• 802.11b wireless
• 640x480 screen, 3.5"
• takes 1 GB SD cards (unless it's a Sony :-p )
• works well with Skype, so I could use it like a phone at Panera or whatever (why? because!)
• plays 320x240x30fps video (probably WMV) well--i.e., rotated
• I guess Word/Excel viewing would be nice
• maybe PDFs, too—ebooks, manuals, etc.
• and a good JPEG viewer/slideshow kind of thing
• camera? sure. 640x480 at least, 1MP+ preferred — not a crappy 320x240 CMOS like my phone has.

Does such a beast exist? For ~$200 on Craigslist?

Udate: SUCCESS!

Dell Axim X50v

• 640x480
• 624 MHz
• 64 MB RAM
• CF *and* SD slots! (I've got 512M and 1GB SD cards and some smaller CF cards)
• $200

Update 2: OK, so I've spent a bit of time with it. A bit of a rocky start, since some things I liked most about Palm (like Search) took a while to find, but I'm liking it a lot, especially Transcription mode, which lets you enter text by writing anywhere, all over the screen. It's exceeding my expectations—I was just hoping for something cool that I could mess with for a while, like the Media Center Dell PC I bought earlier this year. Except for the fact that the web browsers suck (can't save files from the web to local storage? Moz and Opera are both unstable? wtf?!?!?) it's a pretty neat device.