I agree about the battery fact… however I believe you should keep in mind that the Pocket PC offers a lot more in processing power and is suitable for many more advanced apps due to CPU, RAM and color screen than a Treo. Also like Jan Rychter mentioned, it is capable of running Linux, giving you much more power over the device than neither a Palm nor the Pocket PC OS do. Although the battery isn’t impressive, I think it has been improved in the newer iPaq (personally I use an iPaq 3970 and have never owned similar devices before), and being a LiIon, it can be charged every night without developing the NiMh’s memory effect. It is a pain in the *** though that one can’t change the battery like it is possible in most mobile phones. This has been changed in the newest iPaqs too, as far as I know.

I’d suggest trying a Sharp Zaurus C-750 (or C-760). They look fairly nice, have a great screen, and run Linux. People have even gotten CLISP with Maxima to run on the things.

On the practical phonebook/todo side though, nothing beats the Palm.

Have you ever try a Psion 5 mx? It is a PDA with a keyboard. Work like hell as a PDA, never crashes. Battery life using 2 AA batteries is 20 to 30 hours.

Mr Greenspun,

use your brain + pen & paper, that way you don’t need any batteries… I said that before didn’t I?

Also, I think more products should have handcranks. My old car has a backup handcrank starter and it’s saved me many times when the battery gone flat.

Unfortunately they don’t make cars with starter cranks anymore… I guess that’s another indication of the imminent downfall of western civilisation…

Yes, that’s right, a cellphone. hand. crank.

Clear!

Hmm, I wonder if this cellphone handcrank would work on the iPAQ?

(First time I flew into San Jose, it had three strips: the one in the middle was a grass strip used by sailplanes.)

I have the Danger Color Sidekick from TMobile. It’s a great device although it cannot sync with Outlook as the above poster mentioned. You can export your Outlook contacts and other info. as a text file and import it into the Sidekick.

The device works well as a data device. Email push is just as good as the Blackberry yet it can browse the web (not just WAP, but normal webpages including photo.net) and it has AIM (ICQ also).

It’s not that good as a phone and TMobiles coverage isn’t great yet, so I keep my Verizon phone. With the Sidekick, I’m on an unlimited data-only plan at $29./month. Danger has an interesting way of caching data on their servers so the experience is faster than other wireless devices. It’s a neat device/service, one worth checking out.

That’s a great joke! I thought it would be about the missing exchange of the $3000 and was caught off guard by the punchline.

RE PDA’s: I’m still happy with my Palm Vx. Four years old? Still does what I bought it for.

After years of using a Palm I finally bought a PocketPC. I went with PocketPC because I have some apps I want to develop for it eventually and I will need a test machine anyway.

Overall, I am happy with it. It is not as optimized of a UI as Palm, (I have found a few little things like the battery bar you mentioned that irritate me too), but I have found solutions for my complaints so far.

About the battery level display, most PocketPC users use WisBar or some variant http://www.lakeridgesoftware.com/index.h…) to take care of that and similar issues.

As far as battery levels go, I have never had my PPC run down on me, but I have it resting in the cradle when I am in office or at home so the charge gets topped up pretty regularly. That said, I go home Friday and don’t need to change it over the weekend. I use it less over the weekends, true, but I give it far more use that you are describing here without any problem. This does vary from model to model and the newer machines seem to be much improved over what I have seen in the past.

Just my 2 cents.