I am the Mookah!

That having been established, let me state how useless it is to carry a palm for contacts, a mobile phone loaded with… yes… contacts, and a blackberry to check stocks and… contacts….
All these lame gadgets– you’ll buy all of this crap and then look back at their useless plastic carcasses in a few years and scoff at them.
You can buy a tiny address book (the kind that comes from trees) for 99 cents and you’re good.

Ort! Mookah!

Thank you.

Like you, my treo has failed me 6 times in 15 months.
Yes!. I am on my 6th Treo and the warranty will expire in 2 weeks.
You know they have 90 day warranty on any hardware they replaced, so I kind of got lucky there. Mine started failing in the 11th month and it has been like that. So I started doing some research on what I want to get next…

My $0.02 on this.
Since you mentioned you paid $600 for the Treo, I am going to use that as a ballpark and suggest a Sony Picturebook. (used obviously)
You can find one on ebay for around $500.

It is probably not as portable as a PocketPC or Palm, but should be reliable and run most of your aviation software.
You might also be able to purchase a GPS PCMCIA card and use it as
a NAV “aid”, if your DA 40 already does not have one. Even if you do, redundancy does not hurt.

Much better than all the laptop alternatives that have been suggested.
A cheap $50 phone, which is compatible with iSync or something else
should complete the solution.
–Raj

I use a small almanac and a pencil. It’s cheaper, doesn’t need batteries and never breaks.

You could also use your own brain to memorize and calculate stuff. It only takes some training…

Hi Phil!

I’ve had the Treo 300 for about a year and love it, once I got past the train wreck known as Sprint technical support (15+ phone calls to get data access set up!) Yes, it’s got shortcomings, so does everything else out there. No hardware problems yet (nor does my wife who bought one at the same time) so that’s luck of the draw, or perhaps lack of adventure.

I tried the small laptop solution a while back and it didn’t work very well. Even a small laptop is too bulky to be your carry-everywhere device. If you’re roaming and want to be able to work on Excel files, great, bring your laptop. But if you want to go rollerblading and be able to make phone calls with calendar/address book integration from a gadget carried in your pocket, forget about the laptop.

If you spot Saddam and want to whack him upside the head, the laptop is still a better choice. (Had to connnect that in somehow.)

-Walter

Don’t you just love when people bring the discussion down to their level and then beat you with experience?

This looks to be the most commented blog entry yet. In comparison to the “high-falutin” moral discussions, people seem to love to talk with other enthusiasts about everyday items they own and have real experience with (thus photo.net).

Palm Zires can be found for $50 if you check ebay. My biggest complaint is the low contrast screen.

The only PDA I have found useful is the Handspring Visor Edge, which is in an all-metal case and has a rechargeable battery (Li-Ion). Charge lasts for 2 weeks or more, and the metal case protects from bents and bruises. Also it is much slimmer than the chunky plastic Visors.

Have considered a REALLY small laptop (an ultraportable). I have no personal experience, but a Fujitsu P1000 seems like it would fit the bill.

Does Palm even make models that use AAA batteries anymore?

I’ve used a Palm IIIxe since 2000 and I’d happily upgrade to a significantly faster Palm with more features if it ran on cheap batteries and if it had remotely comparable battery life.