What PDA should I get?

My Palm is dying, apparently from old age. I have a Sony Clie, a Palm OS PDA. I have had it for almost five years. It has a monochrome screen, so I need to recharge it only every 6 weeks or so. It keeps my calendar and my address book, and that’s pretty much all I use it for. 

Lately, it has been getting senile and forgetting everything it knows. I then charge it back up (the battery is getting a little old, and it need charging more than once a month now) and Hotsync it with the computer. But lately this little Palm thing has been crashing my computer when I hook it up. I’ve had this problem occasionally ever since I upgraded to XP, but now it consistently takes down the whole OS whenever I plug it in. And when it does so, it corrupts the calendar program on my desktop. Of course Sony ceased support for this device ages ago. I might as well be using a stone tablet for all they care.

I am in a quandary about what to replace it with. I have looked disdainfully at the progress of PDAs, with their full color, battery-eating screens and their 300 functions that I don’t want, don’t need and will never figure out how to use. I’m mad as it is at the current crop of cell phones—each iteration of phone adds buttons and functions I don’t want. I can’t stand the one I have (an LG flip phone) because of the buttons on the side, that you can’t disable, that keep putting me into settings and modes that I don’t know how to get out of. Apparently, phones have lost the ability to be just phones.

So, what should I replace my PDA with? Anyone have advice for me? Or should I convert to the $12 "At A Glance" calendar/address book that I bought at Office Depot today?

Comments

[Rob Spring]

Doug,

You have obviously transitioned just fine from manual cameras with only shutter speed and aperature settings to a high tech digital camera. Give it up and move on. I was the same way carrying a phone and a pda. Since I got my Treo 700P (palm based) I feel I always have everything I need with me. I went very slow with it learning how to use each feature one at a time. I was very frustrated at first, but stuck with it. I have not used the email feature as of yet, don't know if I ever will. When stuck in an airport I love getting on line and reading your blog.

[Shaun]

Watch out for the Toshiba Pocket PC's, they suck down batterys with abandon. The most egregious error in their design is that if you run out of batteries, you loose everything on your device. This may be common with other PDA's, but I won't get another device until it has a memory capability that can maintain data without power. I'd look at the lower end monochrome palm devices myself, they seem the best for battery life.

[Jim Scolman]

Good morning, I think pen and paper are the way to go. You are outside shooting alot, so head over the the UDub Bookstore and get one of those bright YELLOW notebooks designed to be used by engineers, etc.,outside and in bad weather. Enjoy your work and blog. Jim
www.photoday.blogspot.com

[David Adam Edelstein]

I'm biased -- day job at a large company on the east side -- but I think the windows mobile devices are pretty terrific. Even if all you use them for is to sync your calendar and your contacts to your phone, it does that well.

If you're using an LG phone, that probably means you're on Verizon, right? The Motorola Q is a great choice -- My brother went from the same Sony you have to that Motorola and loves it.

[Rob Peterson]

When my Palm V died, I looked around and found a used one for $25. That was two years ago, and the replacement continues working fine.

The other option would be to find a way to replace the dying battery. Perhaps a battery speciality store, e.g., Batteries+, can offer you a new battery. The www.batteriesplus.com Web site lists around 60 Clie models for which batteries are available.

Bob

[Frank Petronio]

I've had a Treo 650 for 18 months or so, after years of juggling the cheapest Palm PDA plus a cell phone plus a pocket digicam. Once this Treo breaks for the last and final time (the insurance crapped out at 3X -- and they charged for defective/crashed phones too) I will go back to my laptop and whatever $100 Mac-friendly iSync cell phone is readily available. That and my collection of Palm-sized Moleskines should do everything I wanted the Treo to do. Only cheaper, easier, and probably better.

Expensive, over burdened PDAs are a distraction. Managing email and surfing the internet is possible, but it is still a pain even under the best of conditions. But even without having a PDA online, they are still a pain in the nexk. I learned my lession.