Which Hand held PC ?

[Enodreven]

Hi,

I have been looking at purchasing a hand held/pocket PC with Wifi, has anyone any suggestions on the best one to get.

I would also welcome any comments as i would like to be able to search the web, download emails and also use it for keeping notes and appointments ?? also do they accept hand writing ??

Any advice would be welcome

Brian

 

[Digger Driver]

I have the Mario 2 MDA which is on contract to T-Mobile!
You can surf the web with it but you can use it as a wireless USB modem too!
It costs £32 a month but you get £34 worth of calls and free weekend calls!
Its fitted with Windows Mobile and has a slot for a memory card!
It slides open to give you a full keyboard too which makes it very easy for emails and text!
Its worth a look!

 

[Papa Smurf]

I have the Orange SPV3100 on contract with (surprise surprise) Orange.

Fully functional PDA, accepts handwriting, oral notes, typed notes etc. It can do more that I can do with it.... Browsing the web and emails are fine too.

The unit appears under different names with different mobile companies, but all the same except for the badge.

 

[camcondor]

Brian, there is a legion of nifty little handhelds out there - depends on your preferences and budget, really. Possibly worth looking at is is T-Mobile's MDA and its relatives - these are mini-pcs in effect, with Wireless, Bluetooth, camera, MP3 player as well as mobile phone........and all in an incredibly small package with full QWERTY keyboard. Newer versions can run GPS as well. All windows compatible.

You can get very good deals on contract with t-mobile or buy one which has come off contract on ebay (be careful).

Lots of other PDAs from Palm, HP and loads of others - not quite as multi-functional as the MDA but may suit your needs better.

Hope you are successful in your quest.

Laurie

 

[Enodreven]

Hi, Everyone

Thanks for the suggestions,

I was thinking about going for a standard ? handheld/pocket PC rather than a combined unit which included the phone as I thought it would possibly have a slightly larger screen than a combined unit, only i have looked at one or two of the phone units and the screen does seem a little small to try and search the web with ??

what do you think ??

Brian

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[Digger Driver]

The screen on the Mario 2 MDA is 3 inch x 2 so its not too tiny!

I would add when i bought it it was very hard to get it to work with Vista but i gave T-Mobile's Tech guys the correct patch and i am using mine as i type!
It will not stream video off the web but i have used it for huge downloads (1600mbs) with no trouble!

 

[camcondor]

The screen sizes of all these little units are much of a muchness.....obviously compromised as the size factor is important. The MDA has a very usable, large screen which is a lot bigger than my old PDAS - a Compaq Ipaq 3750 and HP Jornada, and is easy to navigate and very clear when browsing. Some sites are optimised for small screens. Personal preference I think....

Laurie

 

[656]

I have a spare Ipaq 4150 - See here ->Ipaq 4150. For sale with Tomtom 5 installed + car kit £150 inc

 

[GJH]

I have a Palm Tungsten TX. WiFi for Internet access where avilable. Bluetooth for access via mobile phone where not (e.g. re-enactment muster camps)

The Premier English Civil War re-enactment society:-
The Sealed Knot

The premier Royalist regiment
Sir Nicholas Slanning, Hys Regiment
None Better! .

The Supreme & Number 1 English Civil War re-enactment society:-
The English Civil War Society

The Supreme & Number 1 regiment - Royalist or otherwise:
Sir Thomas Tyldesley's Regiment of Foote
Simply The Best! .

Graham:thumb:

 

[G2EWS]

Hi Brian,

I went down this route a few months ago having bought almost every product over the last 10 years.

Whilst looking at buying the new T Mobile Ameo, which is a computer with screen as well as phone, I came across a blog, where a guy bought one and sung it's praises.

After a while he mentioned he bought a blue tooth handset! Not headset! This was a device which looked about 4" long and 3/4" wide and had a keypad and display on it. This guy then raved about how he kept the Ameo in his bag and just used this handset.

Another guy on the blog also mentioned that he thought the Ameo was great but no good as phone so he bought a cheap phone to put his sim card in and used the Ameo for computer work!

Now by this stage you will probably be thinking the same as me! Why would you buy an expensive gadget and then not use it properly because in their words, 'you would look a complete prat walking down the road with a brick next to your head and talking'?

So I dropped that idea. I already have a Compaq/HP Ipaq which has been good over the years and now serves as a satnav for the motorhome. But what I needed was something I designed 20 years ago and had been waiting for someone to make!

That product it turns out it this:

http://www.samsung.com/uk/business/b2b/pdfs/products/notebooks/ultra_mobile/q1.pdf

My one is the 1gb ram and 60gb hard drive, with additional keyboard and case. I also bought the external DVD drive.

It comes with wi fi, blue tooth and the 7" screen is a doddle to write on.

I use it totally instead of paper and post it notes and if a bit of paper is given to me it is turned into a note on the Q1. This is all done in MS One Note, which is a product I had no use for in the past.

Because of this I have my complete diary with me all the time, and when I have OneNote running on the laptop it seamlessly backs up.

I have just bought another for my Son in the office and purchased again from:

Link Removed

Call Danny on 0118 9458612

First one I bought at £459 including vat and this time it cost £445 including vat. If you can claim the vat back this is cheaper than they sell on eBay for.

They sell ex loan machines that come back in and are checked and sold with a full 12 month manufacturers warranty.

This product has a list price of somewhere in the region of £900 including the keyboard and case!

Personally I think it answers all your problems, if you have any questions just let me know.

Best regards

Chris

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[Enodreven]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions

I have been checking the different types of PDA's those built into phones and those that are stand alone and those that have hard drives and those that have larger screens etc etc the list goes on and on? the mind boggles ??.

Coupling that with the fact that I'm not really sure that I would really use it as we always take the laptop which has wifi with us, as we use microsoft autoroute as our GPS system.

Anyway back to where I am at the moment, I actually purchased a Medion GPS/Pocket PC from Aldi back in 2004 its the MDPPC200 and while it worked fine as a GPS system we really haven't used it since we started to use Autoroute.

So i thought it would be interesting to see if i could get it to work with a SDIO Wifi card albeit everywhere i checked said that it wouldn't work as they kept saying that the Medion's card slot was only SD/MMC and not compatible with SDIO.

Never the less not show defeat and to just see if I would find it useful ? as you do ??. I purchased a Spectec WLAN 802.11b SDW 820 card on EBay for £11.50, last of the big spenders ?? and it arrived yesterday and you won't beleive it but it actually works, I can connect to my Wifi router and it also finds other Wifi signals when i tried it outside ??

So the lesson is never give up ?LOL

I will use it for a few weeks just to see if its worth perhaps spending some money and getting a more up to date unit, but you never know I may well put it back in the cupboard with the rest of the gadgets LoL

Thanks again for the advice and suggestions

Brian