[NBLUG/talk] PDA recommendations?

Lincoln Peters sampln at sbcglobal.net
Sun Jan 29 13:07:29 PST 2006


My Palm m515 has started to freeze up intermittently when I try to turn it on.  
It is now out of warranty, and PalmOne has stopped making these devices, so I 
think I'll have to get a new PDA.  But first, I'm looking for 
recommendations.

First of all, I need a new PDA that will do everything that the m515 did as 
well as the m515 did it (I used it primarily for its Address book, Calendar, 
and To-do list functions).  That seems pretty easy, considering the PDA's I 
saw on display at Office Depot and CompUSA this morning.  But I also want to 
be able to sync it with my Debian/Etch box, which is using Kontact v1.2 (with 
KPilot v4.6.0, KMail v1.9, KAddressBook 3.5, and KOrganizer v3.5).  If I can 
do that, I'd also like to sync it with a Macintosh running OSX 10.4 (but I'll 
save that for a mailing list that's geared to Mac users).

I'm also curious about multi-function devices.  If I could get a smartphone 
(e.g. the Palm Treo) that would replace my m515 *and* my cell phone, that 
would be one less device I'd have to carry.  But I don't want to go for a 
multi-function device if it doesn't do at least as good a job as each of the 
individual devices that it would replace.

Finally, being a college student on a tight budget, I want to make sure that 
what money I spend on a new PDA is as well-spent as possible.  The PDA should 
do everything I need, it should be reliable, and I shouldn't have to pay 
extra for feature that I won't use.


So this leads me to the following questions for list members with PDA's:

1. What kind of PDA do you use, and how satisfied are you with it?
2. Can you sync your PDA with anything on Linux?  If so, how reliable is it?
3. What multi-function devices, if any, are worth considering?


My experience with the Palm m515 has been that it worked nicely for what I 
needed, and sync'ing with the Kontact suite works most of the time (sometimes 
KPilot crashes in the middle of a sync, to-do items on the PDA always 
overwrite those on the PC even if the items on the PC are more recent).  I 
used Evolution prior to switching to Kontact, and I was rather disappointed 
with it (gnome-pilot seems to require the GNOME desktop, calendar and to-do 
items would often be duplicated during a sync for no apparent reason).


-- 
Lincoln Peters
<sampln at sbcglobal.net>

Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink
that they may live.
		-- Socrates

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