Old Chinese curse about living in interesting times...

[Anthony Caruana]

Mmm... I'm waiting on the delivery of a new PocketPC at the moment (iPAQ 2210) and am looking at the buzz on Smartphones and am wondering "Did I make the right choice?" :?

At the moment I carry my mobile phone and PDA everywhere. I use WiFi, with my Socket WiFi card, to get my mail (either from a hotspot or my home LAN). I can use IR to get my phone and PDA to "talk" but don't do that cos it's a PITA. I can browse the web and manage my calendar and tasks as well do some rudinetary word processing and spreadsheeting while I'm out and about.

If I had a smartphone I think I'd be able to do all of the same stuff except for maybe the WiFi. Is that right?

In the experience of some of you Sartphone users, are Smartphones and PPCs complementary devices or is one device enough to get you by :?:

It used to be easy once upon a time ago. Each device did a specific thing. Now the differentiation between devices is so blurry. Oh well, at least it's interesting.

Regards

[mcsouth]

I guess I'm wondering the same thing - I'm more than happy with my current PPC ( a Jornada 567), and don't see enough value in the new Mobile 2003 units to get me to trade yet. The smartphone, however, have got me thinking its time to replace my boring vanilla Nokia with something that has a little more oomph! As some others have noted, I sort of wish that the current smartphones out there came with Bluetooth, so that I could hook up to my Jornada (via a BT CF card) for web-browsing on a larger screen.

Than being said, I am seriously considering getting a smartphone for a little better integration between Outlook, my PPC and cellphone - I don't feel like trying to rekey all my contacts into my phone; I'd rather let ActiveSync handle it! I'd be interested to hear experiences from some early adopters on their smartphones - how is it as a phone? a PDA/PIM? How much other information management do you do on it, as compared to your PPC (if you still have one)? Let us know, folks!

[Gorskar]

well you can't do spreadsheets, and the only work processing you can do is with a text editor (such as orneta notepad), so in this respect the smartphone platform is still lagging.

Still its a very handy device indeed - packs so much into such a small box!

[Robert Levy]

What it comes down to is what you use your device for. For most people, a Smartphone will meet all of their needs. But for many others, having a Pocket PC or maybe even both would be appropriate. If you do lots of data entry or need to edit Word/Excel files, you need a Pocket PC. If you read eBooks, you need a Pocket PC. If you like to play games on planes, you need a Pocket PC. And if you want something with a long battery life, (for now) you need a Pocket PC.

Personally, I have both and take my Smartphone everywhere with me. I keep a Pocket PC around but really only use it for reading eBooks, playing games during long flights, and listening to music. I technically could do the music on my Smartphone, but the battery life isn't nearly as good as on modern Pocket PCs.

[mcsouth]

Well, I guess I will get to discover all of this first hand, since my new SPV is winging its way over the ocean to me.......while waiting is usually the worst part, I will actually be at Scout camp with my son next week when it arrives, so it will be over a week before I get my hands on it! :cry:

I expect that I will probably continue to carry my Jornada with me for most of the day - especially at work. However, I am expecting that it will be nice to still have all of my core Outlook data with me when I'm just dropping out to the store, coffee shop, etc - sometimes, my PPC just doesn't feel right in my shorts pocket.

I am certainly looking forward to discovering what this new platform has to offer me!!!