What PDA?

[Fidley]

Hi i'm after a phone pda, want wi-fi access, full qwerty keyboard, dunno what else... maybe a built in GPS reciever, advise meh please. What are my options? Cheers!

EDIT: Been doing some searching came up with THIS any good? Will T-mobile be doing these anytime soon? Or what about the MDA Pro? Sorry guys this'll be my first pda so i don't have a clue

EDIT2: Or what about the MDA Vario?

[TheAnimus]

sounds like your after some form of self defense wepon rather than a mobile phone!

Whats it you need it for? I'd always advocate getting a mobile phone that's small, light, good battery life etc.

A seperate PDA can always access your phone for net via bluetooth.

[Fidley]

Lol, who needs a light sabre when u've got a PDA, hell the sylus is almost a light sabre, eh............. *Cough* Anyway, I'd like to use it for sat nav, email, the odd game, the odd mp3, calendar (would be great if it has some sort of linux support for this- as i'm almost running linux as my main OS), browsing the net on the loo (read anywhere in range) via my wi-fi AP (running 802.11g, but it has b support too) and maybe in the future at hopspots. Basically tho, i don't want two devices and some of the modern pda's are almost as small as a phone (already have quite a big phone 6680, doesn't bother me tbh).

[TheAnimus]

hmm its the querty keyboard thats the killjoy imo.

First off you might hate me for saying this but all the best portables on the market run Windows Mobile 2005, and whilst i did spend 10 hours getting linux to boot on my ipaq 5555 it was slow.... very slow. X is just wank, which means that on a slow PDA its even worse.

I currently run on an Imate SP5 or a Qtech 8310 depending on who's branding it is, its great, no qwerty keyboard, no, stylus thou, however its normal phone size, has 802.11b i can write word documents power points etc. Checks for new email every 6 hours via GPRS and every 5 mins when its in 802.11b range.

My 5555 rarely gets used because of its size and the touch screen. I want a phone i can stick in my pocket and not worry about the touch screen.

as such i'd have to advise against using a PDA as a phone as strongly as possible. keep it seperate. Pda's tend to want to live in a pDA holster anyway, so its not as if the phone in ur pocket is a big sacrefice.

I'd also ask if ur mobile could do everything a qwerty keyboard PDA can!

[Zathras]

Originally Posted by Fidley

n doing some searching came up with THIS any good? Will T-mobile be doing these anytime soon? Or what about the MDA Pro? Sorry guys this'll be my first pda so i don't have a clue

EDIT2: Or what about the MDA Vario?

The KJAM is the same as the Vario, just the latter's sold by T-mobile. Got one myself. Love it but you have to be able to forgive it some tempramental moments when it doesn't react for several seconds every now and then, for instance when quitting/closing a large program or if your signal keeps on dropping out, ie on the tube. The processor's just a bit weak for my liking as it can't really do Skype nor play decent movies, but then again the same was true of my Sony Ericsson P900 and will be true of the P990. I can't wait for the second version tho (see http://msmobiles.com for details) but no idea when that's out in this country.

[Slick]

Instead of getting the k-jam, get the jasjar (or XDA exec). It's more expensive but it's got a much better keyboard, screen, and its a lot faster and easier to use. It's fast enough to play games, use skype, play divx films (over wifi and off an SD card). I got mine about a month ago and it's the first mobile phone orPDA which I have really liked and enjoyed using.

[AJ84]

I have a K-jam aka Tmobile Vario (and i think it is the spv m5000 on orange and xda 2smini on o2??)
Bluetooth, wifi, fast, windows 5.0 no problems here
i dont like the jasjar mainly for the fact of the size, there is quite some bulk on it and working in a phone place, we find a lot of the jasjars coming back because of screen problems where they should only be twisted one way
we found they were more unstable too however, i suspect firmware fixes should sort this out

[GuruJockStrap]

What you want to wait for is the HTC Hermes. T-Mobile should brand this as the Vario II.

http://msmobiles.com/news.php/5011.html

Features a 300MHz Samsung CPU that performs on par with a 400MHz Intel.

[TheAnimus]

which gen of xscale is that thou? Bear in mind the older one (which i belive that comparison could only be in respect too) is over 3 years old, and has been superceded.

[pp05]

I'm looking forward to the p990i product from SE.

Looks an interesting product.

[Fidley]

Originally Posted by GuruJockStrap

What you want to wait for is the HTC Hermes. T-Mobile should brand this as the Vario II.

http://msmobiles.com/news.php/5011.html

Features a 300MHz Samsung CPU that performs on par with a 400MHz Intel.

Yeah saw that when googling for various pda stuff, looks good.. perfect almost... can i wait that long tho

[Nox]

When is that out ??????

Wow, I need one.

Nox

[blun]

I'd recommend the O2 XDA mini-S .. with the latest firmware update it ticks all the boxes, and is 100% stable.

[RedPutty]

I'm looking forward to July! My contract finished a couple of months ago on orange.

[UltraMagnus]

windows mobile is a bitch to sync with linux, i have tried.... best avoid WM if you want to sync to linux.

that shortens your options..... considerably, to more or less: sharp, palm or psion.

out of those, AFAIK, the only one that makes a smartphone is palm, get a treo 650 if you want palm OS though, they recently turned to the dark side and produced the treo 700w (three guesses what the w stands for....), no gps, but you could always use an SD card for that.

of course, you could always get a normal pda and use a compact flash phone module, no fancy 3g or anything there AFAIK.

as for a "full keyboard" the only pdas i know that ever had a real full keyboard were the psion pdas.

as for games, that depends what you want, the only currently in production PDA i know of that is good with games is the dell axim x51v

of course, you could always look at the PDA functions on the gizmodo or the GPX2, of course, they are games consoles first, and PDAs second, which doesnt sound like what you want.

well, hope that helps a little