What's your Pocket PC story?

[Enderet]

The first time I ever saw a Pocket PC was in Novermber of 2001, when I was going through my new issue of PC Gamer (Vol. 8, NO. 12-December 2001. Issue 91). The article was 5 pages dedicated to Pocket PCs was entitled "Pocket Power" and it had a two page picture of a girl with a pierced belly-button and an iPaq H3600 series sticking out of her pocket. The article talks about how these machines can play Quake I :rock on dude!: and how "3d acceleration is in the planning stage". It ends with a comparison of the H3600 iPaqs, the 54/560 Jordanas, and the E-125 and EM-500 Cassiopeia.
When I read this article I knew I had to get my hands on one of these. When I went online to eBay, I saw them all and decided to wait for the E-200, because for some odd reason I was captivated by the Cassiopeias, yet wanted to have Pocket PC OS. So I waited, but when it was released I decided to lay down some money to buy an old 1968 Porsche 911 project car. This baby took so much time and money, I completely forgot about PPCs.....for a while :D
Im a musician and well after an extensive "gig" I came across a large sum of money :rock on dude!: I was ready to spend my money on a collection of DVD movies and while I was walking inside of the electronics department at my local Wal-Mart, I found myself staring straight at an open item iPaq 3835. They were selling it for $350, but it seemed strange to me, because my local WalMart stopped selling PPCs about 2 years ago. I didnt even know if it was a relatively new PPC and if it was worth the price. So I told the lady at electronics to hold it for me. I rushed home turned on my lappy and went online to look for a review of the PPC and for the prices online. I was dissapointed to see that the PPC was selling for 400+ new online. So I called up the lady and thanked her for holding it, but that I would not be purchasing it. While I sat in front of my comp, feeling somewhat annoyed and dissapointed, I decided to look for a decent PPC site.
:D This is where PPC Thoughts comes in. The site looked real nice from the start and as I scrolled down using my intelli, I came across an article about the E-335, in which jason made a mistake and at first said it was the e355...http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?topic_id=12393. Anyways... I looked up all of this and decided to invest those $125 AR. I bought my PPC and was happy for the time being. Later on I began reading about PPC 2003 and I felt somewhat stupid for having purchased the e335, even though it was a good buy. I took it to school and watched Minotiry Report on it. Plenty of people gave me thumbs up. One of them in particular, a friend from Jerusalem asked me if I would sell it to him, so that when he went back to Jerusalem this summer, he could give it to his sister as a present.
I asked him how much he wanted to pay me for it... and he asked me how much I had gotten it for. I told him the truth and told him it was $125 AR. He said he would give me 175, since it was used and I remained silent. 175+100 rebate would leave me with 275 towards my next PPC purchase(a 2003 :D ) and then he said $200. I immediately told him yes and gave me the money the following day, the only condition being I had to teach him how to put music into it and to leave him with a PPC copy of "National Security".
Now the days seem long without my PPC, even though I only had it for 2 weeks it became such an important part of me and I go about my days with joy, counting off the days until PPC 2003 is released. :rock on

[Crystal Eitle]

I first saw a Pocket PC in January of 2002. It was an iPaq 3xxx (sorry, can't remember the number. I cannot tell those iPaq 3xxx's apart). My boyfriend had gotten it for Christmas from his folks. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have one. However, I couldn't buy one, as I was working as a flight attendant and not even making enough money to live on. And despite my many hints, my BF did not buy one for me. :twak:

Fast forward to February of 2003. I've quit flying and am working as an administrative assistant at the headquarters of a large Midwestern bank. It's not as exciting, but I'm making more than twice what I made as a spacewaitress.

At this point my PPC lust is all but forgotten until, in an attempt to get my life in order, I buy a book on time management. The book emphasizes the importance of making lists and having one place to write everything down. "Hey," I think to myself, "this sounds like something a Pocket PC would come in handy for."

So I go online to ePinions.com to read up on the different iPaqs (because at that point, that's the only brand I knew existed. I had never heard of Dell or Toshiba as far as Pocket PCs were concerned). The reviews of the 1910 were glowing, and the price was right. I decided I had to have one that night, despite the cold, snowy weather. I called one Best Buy, and they were out. I called another Best Buy, and spoke to the girl at the PDA counter who said they had one left. "Hold on to it for me!" I said. "Promise me you won't sell it to anyone else! I'm coming to get it!". I got into my car and drove out to the suburbs.

When I got to the store, another customer was looking at my baby. "Excuse me," I said, "that's mine." I happily marched to the checkout counter, new iPaq in hand.

In the end, I'm glad I waited and bought a Pocket PC with my own money instead of waiting for someone to get one for me. I ended up with the nicest, cutest, best-looking Pocket PC imaginable. My boyfriend still owns his original 3xxx, which is slower than my 1910, has a cavernous-looking reflective screen, and is starting to suffer battery drain. Now he's the one with PPC envy :twisted: .

And, amazingly, this little gadget has made my life better in so many ways. I'm reading more, I'm keeping better track of my money, and I'm starting to accomplish some goals. I have a daily To-Do list, and I have a much better handle on my schedule. I've learned more about technology than I ever imagined I would, and of course, I've stumbled on to the wonderful community that is Pocket PC Thoughts.

[PR.]

It was May 2000 and I owned my Psion Series 5mx for over 3years and a Series 5 before that. I had read that Psion were pulling out the PDA Market and the Netbook/Series 7 was too big. I had taken a strole with a Palm clone the Handspring Deluxe and absolutely hated it.

I'd seen the earlier 'Pocket PC's' before PPC2000 and had laughed at how awful they looked and performed. I started a new job and some there had an iPAQ 36xx I was impressed, I still laughed at the reliability of device and the short battery life but I was drawn in by the idea of a new gadget and the colour screen. I did a bit of research on it and found there was a problem with multiple button pressing and dust getting in the screen but I went ahead...

I got my first iPAQ a 36xx, it was a troublesome start I accidentally dropped my iPAQ a short fall (Something my Psion would have shrugged off) but enough to mess up the touchscreen so it had to go back at which point I got the newer model that stopped that evil dust getting in :) I bought a compact flash card and sleeve and was on my way :) The 36xx suffered another touchscreen mess-up xmas last year just in time for my new HP 5450. I now have the folding keyboard and a Dual PC Card sleeve I use it for work and play whenever I can get away without needing a laptop. :)

[dMores]

i've always been a rather chaotic person when it comes to time management. i pretty much follow calvin (from calvin and hobbes) who "needs to be in the right mood - last minute panic".
i had big filofaxes, small filofaxes, little pieces of paper in my pocket etc.

but i never really got things organized. it happened more than once that i was asked by fellow students how much i have learned for an exam. "what exam?" :oops:

i knew i needed something digital, because only a gadget that runs on batteries would have what it takes for a gadget freak such as myself to write everything down and look it up regularly.
but i was constantly out of cash (student!) and didn't really know what to get. never heard of pocket-pcs, back then all those little devices were "palmtops" or "palms" for short.

then my girlfriend's dad retired, and decided he didn't need his psion s5 anymore and gave it to me for christmas. boy was i excited.
this thing was amazing. i loved it, and carried it everywhere.

unfortunately, it seemed to have been banged around a lot, since it started being a little unreliable after a while. i used it less and less, and gradually chaos started coming back.

after checking the "mobile devices market", i stumbled across an announcement of the fujitsu siemens pocket loox 600. having seen ipaqs and getting the impression that all ppcs are unpleasing to the eye, this was a beauty.
at the same time the O2 XDA was announced. and this thing was pretty too.
i decided i wanted one of those. since the loox was going to have a funky thing called bluetooth, i read up on that too and decided it was a good thing(tm). scanned the cellphone area for bluetooth mms phones and found out that the sonyericsson t68i was what i needed.

so i had the choice of either an all-in-one device, or a loox with a t68i.
this was the decision i had to live with for about 4 months, because first of all the devices weren't available yet, and second i didn't have the money :)

i decided to go with seperate devices, got a t68i from my girlfriend in summer 2002, and then my precious loox in fall 2002.

and that is what i'm still using today.

my girlfriend advanced to the ppc arena by "inheriting" her father's MDA who dropped it and didn't want to get it fixed. if it had bluetooth i think i would have traded with her. (i forgot to mention, i got a bluetooth headset as well and never took it off :))

so we're an all-ppc-household now.

[Foo Fighter]

I was walking inside of the electronics department at my local Wal-Mart, I found myself staring straight at an open item iPaq 3835. They were selling it for $350, but it seemed strange to me, because my local WalMart stopped selling PPCs about 2 years ago.

That statement threw me for a loop when I first read it. I have never seen Pocket PCs sold in Wal-Mart. My local store only sells Zires. Blech! :roll:

[LucasMX]

I was a frecuent flyer that saw a Compaq Aero in early 2001 and got an IPAQ 3635, after a four week wait.
It took me a month to leave the laptop at home.
I got lost without money or documents on foreign cities and survived with only my IPAQ/CodeWallet (Calling cards, ID, Credit card).
I have got into nasty arguments at work, away from my home office, and my IPAQ/Inbox got me out of trouble.
I have been stranded on hotels, airports, traffic jams, and have experienced rewarding and enriched reading (IPAQ/Msreader) at the same time.
My wife was on labor, the doctor asked me if I had kept a contraction's log. I showed him a comprehensive Pocket Excel Worksheet I used to carry around and kept religiously.

For me, it's like having a peripheral unit for my brain.

[ChristopherTD]

I have always carried portable computers (starting with the first Compaq suitcase computer) around with me for years. Recently it has become more difficult to connect my Thinkpad A21p to clients networks because of security concerns (theirs not mine).

Also I have spent a lot of time recently stuck on trains. So when PC Pro (a UK computer magazine) had a review of the iPaq 5450 I decided to get one and see if I could survive without my Thinkpad. I did no real research on what models were around, nor did I have any real idea what one did with a PDA!

I thought I might play some games, and use it for email on the road, as well as the usual appointments/reminders etc.

After a few months with it I have settled mostly into a routine of reading eBooks on it. I have bought a few games but if I have a few moments I am more likely to read. GPRS with my mobile works well for email, and I am pretty well converted to solely the iPaq (with my Apple iPod for music). Even on a crowded train it is possible to easily read with one hand. For this reason I am not sure that a bigger screen would be useful for me, it may become unwieldy and the 5450 is on the limit for a handheld.

With the latest ROM most of the most annoying technical defects are removed (at least the software ones) so I am in no hurry to replace it with the newer models.

I am hooked on the use-it-anywhere and instantly available features. I have got a few more things done because of reminders (to supplement my flaky memory) but mostly it has transformed my commuting (for the better).

[Elad Yakobowicz]

I decided I wanted a handheld around early 2000 (or was it late 1999, I do not remember). Playing with Palms made me a gadget freak, I had to have one... Until another friend of mine who I was sitting with one day whipped out a Cassiopeia E-125. That's when I yelled -

"Holy crap! What is THAT?!"

I played with it for five minutes and decided I'm going to get a Pocket PC as soon as they come out... Not wanting to wait for the iPAQ though (it was sold out for God knows how long, and I wasn't going to pay $1000 on ebay), I settled for the Jornada 545. I fell in love with it, it was just gorgeous with its sleek, cool metal frame and the beautiful colors. Now that I think about it, I regret selling it on eBay a few months ago... :(

All this of course led into the whole PPC website deal, reading up on news and software. When Agenda Today came out that's when I knew I was completely hooked 0X

[pocketpcdude1024]

I had actually followed Windows CE and Pocket PC devices long before I even bought one. My first glimpse was a picture of a Casio Cassandra in the a ZDNet magazine. All I remember was the PDA was running a version of Windows CE prior to Pocket PC because the Start Menu looked like a Win 95/98 start menu. It had a greyscale screen and (I think) 16MB RAM.

This prompted me to start looking a little more at PDAs, so I went to my local Staples and saw a PalmPilot and a (what was then) new Palm III. Unfortunately, any PDA I looked at I could not afford at that time. However, in October 2000, I bought my first PDA: The Palm m100. While I liked this device, I knew that I wanted more from it so I began to research PDAs on the Internet again. Finally in April 2002 I saw on the PDABuzz website leaked photos of the Toshiba e310. :ppclove: I loved the clean, simple design, the (what was then) fast processor, it's 0.5" thick form factor, but most of all it's price: $400. This was the first non-discounted, non-used Pocket PC I could find and so in July 2002 I bought it. :D

I never bought any accessories or software for my Palm, but I managed to justify buying a 128MB SD card and PrintPocketCE (http://www.pdagrad.com/index.php?option=articles&task=viewarticle&artid=4&Itemid=3) during the first month I had it. :wink:

We've had our downs, like when I found out there were virtually no SDIO accessories and that the port on the bottom was incapable of connecting to a keyboard, but I have kept it because whenever I turn it on the screen glowing seems to make everything right again. :ppclove: You won't understand until you buy one of your own... :mrgreen:

[retlaw]

I drive about an hour a day each way to work so I decided I wanted to get something that I could record voice notes on so that If I remember something while driving such as : reminder about a meeting, a new song on the radio I just heard and wanted to download, etc. I could pickup the voice recorder and talk away, and review this at a later time.

So back in Nov. 2000 I started my search at an electronics store. Looking at the cassette tape and digital records. Right beside the digital records where all the PDAs. Most of them where palm pilots. even though I have been into computers for over 20 years I never liked the Palms (not a flame this is just how I feel). I thought they where too expensive for what they do. But I then noticed a clear red coloured PDA (Handsprings), picked it up and noticed it not only had all the Palm functionality, it also had a built in voice recorder that recorder to individual files I could rename/delete/and copy to my computer. Cooooooooool!

This then got me thinking, why do I want a plain old voice recorder when for a few more dollars I could get one of these. I decided to fight my urge to buy it on the spot and went home and do what I always do...get on the Internet and research the crap out of what I am about to buy.

Once I started my research I started seeing these thing called Pocket PCs come up in my searches. I began reading, and reading, and reading. I read every PPC site I could find for a week straight. I was sold on the PPC now, and just needed to know which model.

I went with the Jornada 548 and haven't looked back since. I then upgraded to a Jornada 565 and now to a Toshiba e740. Tons of money spent but a lot of enjoyment in the last 3 years.

Lastly I went to all this trouble for a voice recorder, and guess what? I use my voice recorder probably once every 3 months.

[trachy]

My wife gave me my 3835 for Christmas. Yup. That's my story. :)

[misery94]

Ah, I remember the first time, just like it was yesterday.... :wink:

When I was a college senior in 1997, I remember seeing a fellow music student holding a brick sized device and writing on the screen. I saw the Apple logo and I remembered hearing about the Newton a few years earlier. Being a poor college student, I QUICKLY lost interest when he told me how much it cost.

A year later I had moved and took a year off before grad. school. I picked up copies of Pen Computing and, what was then, Handheld PC Magazine at my local Barnes & Noble while browsing. Both issues centered around a big event: the launch of the Palm PC and the impending war between it and the now established Palm. Between this and the coverage of the death of the Newton a month later, I was hooked. Whithin a month I spotted a close out of a Casio A-20 HPC at Office Depot and I was on my way. I really wish I hadn't sold that thing now. I actually miss it.

Since then I've owned a Uniden whatever it was (that was very brief) a Phillips Nino, a Casio E-100, a Jornada 542 and 545, an iPaq 3635, 3765, 3955, and now an iPaq 1910. I've liked something about all of the mentioned devices, but I really miss the A-10 and the E-100 the most. Casio really did make some good stuff. It's too bad they have been chased out of the market.

I've spent a lot of time messing around with handhelds that last few years, but i would say that it has definately been worth it. Thanks to the interest it sparked, I got out of the music business (at least as a profession) and into an IT job and i am really glad for that. At least it somewhat justifies all the time and money spent to my wife!

[jpmierau]

Like sooooo many others, I first met a Pocket PC on the job, when a friend pulled out an iPAq 3600 series and played the 'I am Canadian' beer commercial on it at 24 fps, with booming, barely crackling sound. Then he plugged it into the office network and downloaded an MP3 to listen to.

I was floored.

See, I'd gone through the Cassiopeia A20 (clamshell style), Philips Velo (also clamshell) and Cassiopeia e-10 ('Palm-size' PC) and gave up in frustration. Then I went to the dark side with the much more reliable, much less fun Palm III. But before that venerable beer commercial had finished playing on my friend's iPAQ for the 6th time (that's when he asked for it BACK! :cry: ) I was planning my return to the land of Microsoft.

Strangely enough, during my Pocket PC research, I abandoned the iPAQ as an unreliable device (which it was when it first came out) but found the Jornada 548 to be just what I was looking for, with built-in CF even! And EVER since my return to the world of Pocket PC -- always with a cheaper Palm device as a backup, OSTENSIBLY in case of problems but really to give my partner a toy of her own to play with -- HEAR THAT, SPACEWAITRESS! 8) I have been a bigtime PIM user, MP3 listener, eBook collector, commuting-TV-show-watcher & general Microsoft Doodad Fan!! And of course, then there's the website :D

Fast forward 3 years, through a Jornada and a Clie, a Jornada 565, then a 568, then added another clie & even went back to my fave Palm, the V, and now the Axim X5. Seldom a day without a Pocket PC in my pocket, and life is good!

[Don Tolson]

I've been using handhelds and PDAs now since probably 1995 or 6, I think it is. I've had various models of 'electronic lists', rolodexes, etc. But I guess it started in earnest, with a Sharp Zaurus. At that point, I was hooked! I have to have an electronic pal to keep me organized!

My first true 'Pocket PC' would be the HP Jornada 568, which I bought about a year ago. Previously, I was using the J680 (which I upgraded to a 690), which used the earlier Windows CE O/S. It was a fairly big leap for me to try to give up the keyboard and full sized screen I was used to. But I found that the J680 wasn't really 'pocketable' and I really liked the look and size of the newer machines.

I spent a good deal of time on various web sites (Brighthand, PPCT, etc.) reading about the various models and, at the time, everyone seemed to be falling in love with the J568. When I saw one, I fell for it too. It STILL is (IMHO) the best looking PDA around, and it's the only one with a removable, integrated thumbkeyboard that has a truly elegant design.

For me, my machine is not just a PDA, it is truly a 'pocket' PC. I use it for taking meeting notes, voice memos, listening to music on the way in on the bus, occassional read of books (when there's one that interests me). I keep numerous company spreadsheets (including timesheets and expenses) on it, and have composed most of my initial drafts of material for my clients on it. (I just wish there was some software to CREATE powerpoint presentations on it.....)

Without it, I would be totally lost. As a consultant with a number of clients to keep happy, plus numerous 'family' activities, and internal practice development sessions for our firm, there's just too much on my schedule to keep it on paper. And, for me, it just makes sense to have a unit with me that can do all of that and more!

[prismejon]

You can read my story here:
How I ended up with two PPCs in one week after wanting one for a year
(http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12938)!

[Palmguy]

Well, it's been a long road, just look at my graveyard in my signature!

Back in '97 one of my friends was reading through some Apple magazine and showed me a picture of a Newton and told me that he was ordering this nifty little device. After playing around with that for awhile, I thought it was awesome, but huge. I ended up buying a PalmPilot Personal back in 1997. Old school!!! That thing was fun, at least it was for me then. Eventually I came across an article in Pen Computing about the new giant HPCs, one being the NEC MobilePro 750c. I had to have one of these! Big color screen, built-in modem, real keyboard!!! I had a 750c and later a 770. Wish I still had one of them, they were both great! I slowly moved up the Palm feeding chain, from a couple of IIIx's to a Palm V to a IIIc (also pretty cool, the first color Palm). After the IIIc, I grew tired of Palm.

Oh yeah, I had a brief stint in there with a Apple Newton MessagePad 120 with OS 2.0. Very cool, and I wish that I still had that as well, or maybe a 2000 or 2100, but not something I could consider useful for me.


Pocket PCs had just been released or so, and I was skeptical. I was a pretty vocal critic of PsPCs for a long time, and I found it hard to believe that these new Pocket PCs would be any better. But they were. Still financially limited, I only dreamed of the day that I would own a Pocket PC. I stumbled across a classified posting at PDABuzz for a iPAQ 3650 at a pretty good price, $300, and I bought it! Very good decision on my part.

I loved that iPAQ, and one day somehow, I still don't know how, my screen was broken. Sent it over to Pocket PC Tech and they took care of me real good.

Soon 2k2 devices were released, and I wanted the new OS. I didn't see the justification in plunking down a load of cash for a 3700 iPAQ though, so I upgraded my 3650. That held me for awhile, until XScale devices came out and then I figured I skipped one generation of devices and my iPAQ has lasted a year, it's time to upgrade. I couldn't decide between the e740 or the 3950 though. I wanted the built-in wifi, even though I didn't even have wireless access anywhere. The iPAQ's much better, brighter, and bigger screen won me over. I loved the iPAQ anyways, so it was a good fit.

So many people were singing the praises of the new Palms that I had to check one out. After considering my options, I ordered a Zire 71 from Palm's Store. Good little device, fast, bright, but not for me. I'm too entrenched in the good points of Pocket PC. I returned that bad boy just a week after I received it!

Now I have had my 3950 for a year, and it is still doing amazing. Just went wireless this month, which convinced me that it is now once again time to upgrade. I skipped the 5400 series and now I will get a 5500. I figure I can justify it as a college necessity, upgrading what I have to integrated wireless and removable batteries so I can "research" on campus in the fall without my laptop.

What's next? Who knows! :mrgreen:

[tmulli]

My love affair with Pocket PCs started way back when...

I walked into the Circuit Shi**y (a.k.a. City) at the local mall and was checking out something or other when I happened upon a shiny new contraption dubbed the "NEC MobilePro something or other".

Interest was piqued. I oogled. I played. I bought. Total impulse buy. I was going to be just like Captian Kirk!!

I rushed home (as fast as one could in bumper-to-bumper traffic), all the while planning all the things I was going to do with my new best-friend; enter the entire phone book into the Contacts, write all my papers for school, play games instead of writing those papers...oh, heaven.

Then I got home.

Plugged the thing in, cranked on the power and Hello, Handheld PC!! "Enter your info to personalize your device"..."Calibrate the screen"...What fun!!

I played for a little while, tried out everything. Adjusted settings and then adjusted them again. This was gonna be great!!

I returned it 4 days later.

The coolness quotient wore off after about a day and reality sunk back in. I couldn't afford to keep this contraption, being a student after all. I had no money. So back it went.

Flash forward a year or so. Never forgot about that little mobilepro. Then I started to see ads for the new LG units that were coming. And they were in color!! By this time I had graduated and was working the 9-5 so I now had money. I did a little research this time to find out if I would actually use this thing. Turns out it would so I managed to get one at CompUSA. I used it for a good few years. Loved it, couldn't part with it.

Then tragedy struck.

I went to check my schedule one morning to find that a murder had been committed!! My scrren was dead. No, wait!! The whole thing was gone!! Oh the horror!!

I was S.O.L.

Time dragged on. Days blurred into weeks. Weeks blurred into months. I was lost without my trusty companion.

Then a light came shing down, peircing the fog.

It was an ad or email or website post or something about "New!! Pocket PCs".

Say what?

I had to check out further. I did all the research I could.

I had to have one.

They were calling to me...and they were a helluva lot better than those HandPC something-or-other.

It had to be an iPaq. All the others looked like coasters. So I set out to find one. Turns out they were pretty popular, go fig... My search brought me back to Circuit Shi**y of all places. I had come full circle...almost. They didn't have any in stock. (Stake thru the heart).

Hark!! One store had one more in stock. I would have to journey all the way across the big city to the far side to get it, though. A prize well worth the risk.

So, it came to be. And all was good.

Since then, paqqy has retired to Barbados and paqqy jr. has taken his fathers' place (keepin up the family business)...

[slothdog]

In January, my 2.5 year-old Palm IIIxe died. A Dell Axim could do more and was cheaper. So I got one. I like it. The End.

[phenderson]

Hmmmm I started working for the Council of State Governments in Lex.Ky (down the street from the Horse Park)as a systems Analyst in April 2001.

My new equipment, included a brandnew Ibm A21m Laptop, a Sprint PCS Samsung SCH-7500 cellphone, and a spanking brand new Palm IIIxe.

Boyyyyy was a I excited. I had always seen and heard about palms in passing, but was never bold enough to buy one. Now I had one, brand new for free.

I quickly searched the web for any games, and was able to download a sparce few... Then my imagination spoke "WhAT IF THIS THING COULD PLAY GAME BOY GAMES????!!!" and off I was to find a GB emulator...

Thus I found Liberty but I just felt so incomplete. Something was missing. I needed more...
So I stumbled upon the Casio Cassiopeia E100 via the EBAY route. BOOOYYYYY did I feel special. It was SOOOOO cool. It was like Windows in my pocket. And it had music and sounds (Not the tiny bips and beeps of the Palm IIIxe).
I was impressed. I was able to find a nice GB emulator, even though it played rather slow. I was even able to watch movies to a degree.

But I still wanted more. Eventually I grabbed:

-a Casio Casiopiea E115 via ubid (which I sold to my older brother)
-a Compaq Ipaq 3650 via ebay (which I sold to my older brother after he sold the e115)
-My boss tossed me an HP Jornada 548 to look at and play around with because he hated the washed out screen,
-a Casio Casiopiea E125 (via ebay)
-a Compaq Ipaq 3765 (I traded 400 anime CD's, an 80 gig harddrive, a Seagate 4\8 TBU with 10 tapes full of anime for this one along with a Sony Ericcson R380 phone)

-So at one point I had 3 different PDA's sitting on my desk, which prompted everyone in the IT\IS dept. to start calling me palm boy.

-Then I sold the Ipaq, and sat on the HP 548 while it was in my back pocket.
-I picked up an HP Jornanda 568 via brighthand and bought almost all of the expansion pieces (this was hands down, one of the best PDA's ever)
-I picked up a Casio Cassiopeia e750 (via brighthand discussion boards)
-I later sold the 568 and the e750,
-I also bought the ever ellusive HP Jornada 575 and then wrote a review for it (posted on brighthand) and then I sold it to
-Finally my boss gave in to my demands to create a training class for PDA's at work and bought me a Dell Axim X5 Advanced, and a Palm m130 which are the only 2 PDA's I currently own today, that is until the new Samsung Sprint PCS PPCPE's hit the market in this area.

[felixdd]

LOL Phenderson I thought your name was familiar the first time you posted here...now I finally remember! (the 575).

My obsession started when my dad returned from a business trip with two devices in hand -- a DaVinci PDA and a clamshell Casio BOSS. My older brother hogged the DaVinci, leaving me the BOSS. I took the BOSS to me everywhere, and loved it dearly. Unfortunately, my school bag was too full one day and the baby's LCD circuits got crushed between the books, rendering the screen unusable gibberish.

During this time my brother had went to university, and on one visit to his place I asked if he still needed his DaVinci -- and he said no. So I took it, and loved it even more than the BOSS.

But alas, it was high school and I was young -- and so was my friend. Our feeble minds succumbed to peer pressure, and he went on ebay to get a shiny new Philips Nino 300.

Not the one to be outdone, I was sourly envious of all that his Nino could do -- it played gameboy games! AND it had windows...and you can read word documents on it!

So I went on ebay and bought the economy version: Philips Nino 200. I didn't care that it was not as good a device as the 300, nor the fact that I got it at a price higher than my friend's unit. I just needed something that run CE.

After I bought that my computer teacher was preaching to some other students about buying a Palm V. I overheard him say, "For you guys -- don't buy these palm-sized stuff. Instead buy something with a keyboard." Eventually, I bought a MobilePro 770, which I have to this day. The device was immensely useful to me as a student, and did significantly pull my grades up.

And right before I went to university, I bought a J568 to replace my tired workhorse Nino (now packed with academia-related programs like calculators, graphers, spreadsheets, etc. -- quite useful). The washed-out screen is beginning to annoy me but all things considered I don't regret buying it at all -- it has served me well as a music player, note-reader (in the subway), contact list manager, and the occasional game (I have tons of games on it but hardly play at all...I just take comfort in merely having the games).

Now, after one year of university, I just said "screw it," and bought an Intermec 6651 to replace my MobilePro 770 as my notetaking HPC. It is just much more powerful in many ways (mainly the screen colors, its resolution, and the device's overall size and newer OS). It's already paid for itself IMHO when I have a perfect set up that enables it to function just like a laptop, or a thin client -- whichever I choose (i.e. I can access my desktop from the device, anywhere in the world).

I haven't considered an upgrade since I've bought my Intermec fairly recently. But I don't plan to update soon anyways -- I want to use my 568 to its death. It's that versatile.

And notice that no once did I say I use the PIM function. I just never got the habit of keeping a list of tasks, or appointments...I did try to stick to that habit but oftentimes I just forget to check the list. I remember what I have to do fairly decently. My PPC is strictly a portable computing device.

[Jonathan1]

My story begins in the mean back streets of the windy city. It was a cold night. A night you….just kidding. :D

My first PDA was a Palm Pilot5000. (Yes you could actually use the name Palm Pilot and not be slapped by someone for the bastardization of the name :P I got that the year after I graduated HS (’95) and before college. It was a highly useful tool even though all I was using it for was calendar, contacts, notes. I still remember getting excited when I first opened up the box. Never mind the fact that at that point I didn’t even own a computer yet. (That was to occur about 5 months later as a late graduation present from the parent.) I still have it sitting on my shelf with my other devices. I used my Palm Pilot until…I think it was fall of ’98 when I walked into a Computer City. That was where I saw my first MS handheld device: The Casio E-10. It was slick. The actual screen displayed pictures. Albeit a what? I think it was a 4 grayscale screen but the 240x320 made all the difference in the world. Well like my first desktop and first laptop purchase I jumped into it without doing the research or reading the reviews. I waited a few months and got an E-11 (Basically the E-10 but it had a whopping 8MB of RAM. W00T!! ;) I was in 7th heaven. However after 6 months with the newness wearing off I realized one big *** glairing fact. Windows CE sucked horse feces in a BIG way. I was doing soft resets on a daily basis with only a few apps installed. The battery life on the device was horrid with something along 2 day if I was lucky. But even then I loved having a slick GUI to work with instead of my Palm Pilot’s crappy 160 x 160 screen. (Bat then 160 x 160 didn’t look as nice as 160 x 160 now. Something with the screen quality and such.
Then the kicker happened. Someone backed into my beater of a car at Blockbuster. We exchanged words and I just let it go since I didn’t want to get an insurance hike from a simple fender bender on a car that I was going to have only another year or so. So I parked got out, popped the hood and tried to pop the dent out with brute force. The dent being on the left side just in front and above the wheel. I pushed and got it to pop out….*sighs* funny…metal isn’t suppose to make a cracking glass sound. *sighs* I reach into my coat pocket, dig out my E-11, and slowly remove the not so protective cover…yep…[Insert massive amounts of loud colorful metaphors here]
:twak: Stand in awe people. Stupidity stepped into a brave new world that day. So I went home and stared at my baby for about 1/2 hour steaming mad at myself. :drinking: Over the course of a week I mulled over replacing vs. repair the device. I found that screen repair and labor would set me back about $100. That was about 1/4 of the price of the device. :evil: Well I broke down and got the blasted thing repaired. GRRR.
Fast forward to Spring of ’99. I still like my E-11 but its getting long in the tooth. So I started looking at the various devices out. Looked at the E-100, Looked at the sexy Palm V, Looked at the small Compaq Aero and realized that I didn’t want to mess with windows CE anymore. It was to slow. Clumsy. And just a pain in the butt to deal with. So late summer of 99 I was about to purchase a Palm V. It was a beautiful device. But then I heard something online. Microsoft was going for broke. They were making a new OS for their devices. I figured I could hold off a few months and see what info slips out about this OS. As summer turned to fall and fall to winter we learned the name of the device. Pocket PC. We saw screen shots of the GUI. We learned more about some of the individual devices. And I learned I wanted one…badly. So I ended up waiting. An excruciating wait since I’m using my E-11 still. So Jan, feb, march, flies by as the day approaches. The info continues to flow in on the various boards (Mainly Pocketpcpassion, brighthand, and pdabuzz.
The day arrives and I read about, and watch the launch of the coolest device I’ve ever seen. I read the reviews of the two launch devices: The HP Jornada 545, and the E115. To be honest I wasn’t impressed with either. they had their strengths but the screen being viewable in direct sunlight was what I was looking for. To add more icing on the cake this new iPaq I think it was called ;) was going to have a faster CPU as well. So I waited for the May shipping date, money in hand. May came and went. Supposedly Compaq shipped the device but damn if you could find it anywhere and I mean ANYWHERE. Not online. Not in a retail store. Natta. nowhere. Only in I think it was june when they finally started to trickle out. I know I had at least 3 preorders online. Then in late July I did another preorder at a Best Buy. And waited and waited and waited. I have to say the people who complained about some recent shipping delays with the Dell Axim don’t have anything on some of us poor SOBs that waited not one month. Not two months. But three or more months to get their device. I was calling into Best Buy on an almost daily basis. I knew the manger, Gary, on a first name basis at that point. Suffice it to say I was freaking pissed. To add more insult to the injury faced by those damned to wait for their device online complaints started to surface about major quality concerns. For those who’s roots in the Pocket PC don’t go back that far trust me. Any quality concerns about current devices are nothing compared to with the iPaq 363x series. This being the first reflective display device dust became an immediate issue. The amount and how, and even WHAT this dust was became THE hot topic on all Pocket PC and PDA boards. In addition to that you have other various troubles such as the stylus becoming stuck in the silo. Or the stylus not staying in the silo. Or the speaking going bad. Or my favorite the power button physically dropping into the device. LOL! But the biggest concern was of course the dust. You generally know it’s a bad thing when the mention of dust makes it into most reviews. But I forged ahead determined to get my little iPaq. So I waited until September no less. The day finally came. *chorus from above* I got “THE” call. Best Buy. It’s in. In retrospect maybe I shouldn’t have been going 60 down a 35 MPH road but it was deserted! No harm no foul. :P I got it…. :clap: ….On the way home I was only going 40 so at least I was a tad more sane on the way back constantly looking over at my new found joy. Getting home I opened the box… :x-mas: . …. Even the box design was cool! I got it open, flicked the switch on the base of the device and let it charge while I read through the manual, not much of one FYI. That evening I downloaded some e-books, and uploaded a few songs quickly running out of space. I knew what I had to do…spend more money of course. :P By the end of the week I had ordered a CF sleeve for my baby.
All told before I regained my sanity I ordered a CF sleeve, PCMCIA sleeve, microdrive. Fast forward to 2001. I also purchased a year’s subscription of all you can eat wireless from Omnisky for $600 which included the PCMCIA modem. I was in 7th heaven. A whole heck of along way from my Palm Pilot 5000. A last sometime in summer the great dust storm of 2001 occurred on my device. I think it may have gotta a tad bounced around and I jointed the masses that were sending in their devices for a cleaning. Whatever they did, they did indeed clean the device of dust….for about two months. ARRGH! Unfortunately I had to live with the second round of dust because Dale Coffing had graciously offered to send my iPaq in with his for the fist ever upgrade by pocketpctechs (Then called times2tech) to the then amazing amount of 64MB. I was Pocket PC less for about a week. It was hell but well worth the torture when I saw that beautiful memory bar read 64MB of total RAM….ahhhh! :D Minireview here: http://www.pocketpcpassion.com/forum/showthread.php?s=79ff543c1599a20aab1bd45448b290ec&threadid=620&highlight=64MB I had a larger review but Steve deleted most of my posts. Anyways Life was good. Pocket PC with 64MB before everyone else, wireless access, music, movies, da works.
Then the rumors of Pocket PC 2002 started. And boy did they gather steam fast. So fast that the expectation for 2002 were very high. In the end I think there were, and in my case still are, people a tad pissed at how minor the updates, and in a few cases downgrades, were in 2002 however on hearing the first few inklings of what the Jornada 56x series was going to offer I was once again drooling over
. This time I was ready. I had 6 devices preordered as well as 2 in the retail chain. (Best Buy & Circuit) I got my baby at the Circuit City about a mile away from work. I called in that morning the second they opened and checked to see if they had them in. Sure enough they had 3. The immediate response? Drive over there going 60 (This time on a 60MPH highway :D ) and picked my baby up. I still don’t care what people say that’s one sexy PDA. Soon afterwards I received a small gift from Mr. Coffing. He apparently had a Casio EM-500 laying around and he give it to me. To date I still use it as my dedicated Palm e-book reader. It has the best screen of any PDA I’ve ever seen. Its form is perfect for e-books, and it has a replaceable battery so I can keep going and going and going and going while I’m reading. That was spring of 2002. The rest of the year was pretty quiet as was any excitement from the Pocket PC camp.
Fast forward to today. I still have all my old PDA’s laying around. I find myself using my Jornada less now that a bad case of dust has occurred. I can’t stand to read e-books on it with specks all over the place. So once again I find myself waiting. But this time my eye has been wandering back over to the Palm camp. Sony has been doing some serious innovating when it comes to hardware. That screen is sooo dang nice. Pocket PC still has an edge over Palm but its dulled and gotten rusty. If MS isn’t careful that foothold they on Palm OS’s market share could give way. Mediocre devices have a tendency to do that and to be honest I’m not nearly as excited by this round of Pocket PC’s as I was when the first batch was released. We need some innovative designs from the OEM. :?

-Oh forgot to mention I still own an apple Newton. Had one back in 98. Sold it on e-bay spring of 99 to get my iPaq. Regretted it and purchase a new on. I love my Newton :D

[Reinaldo]

I learned about Pocket PCs on school, which is the only thing that I will ever remember out of that Science classroom. (2001-2002) In my old middle school, we had won a district wide contest that allowed the school to give out PDAs (Palms, don't remember the model) to their best students on honors classes. I had just gotten in and for some reason, I could not get in Honors English (I got the last laugh, I am in the IB program now) so no PDA for me. :evil: Well, many people in honors classes didn't get one from the school but they bought it themselves. One of them had a Jornada 548. I fell in love with the OS. The way it worked, the cool games (he had Metallion in it), the nice shape and hardware. So I got one on Christmas that year. Now, in no way did I know that there was a community about Pocket PCs because I assumed that if I had not heard of it on the net, it was probably small. I did find Handango and downloaded every freebie and decent trial software. I decided to save up money for a time when I could buy Pocket PC software, which in my opinion was wise (267$ in one year) I got a 32 MB CF card, but my Jornada began to fall slowly. Gadgets don't last long with me but this one proved long, 9 months.

In the end, by September I got a Jornada 568. An excellent device which should have lasted 5 more months were it not for the defective charger.

I got a Toshiba e740 2 weeks later, a worthy device were it not for the biggest flaws I have ever seen in one line of PPCs: the battery. Right about that time, I learned about Pocket PC Thoughts, a site which I found on Avant Go and which I didn't even know was a forum until November :oops: . I read it like a bible every day on my Toshiba and when I learned to connect the WiFi port (which took a while for those who know Toshibas) I found out that what I had been reading was but the tip of the iceberg. I lurked around since I was a newbie beginning to see the huge online community for the Pocket PC and learned a lot reading the threads.

The battery of my Toshiba began to fluke (1% readings right after a full charge) so I said enough and 3 months later, I entered the iPAQ line (which I had at first hated because of the fact it replaced my cherished Jornada line) with a 3955. Excellent device, suited my needs. I even bought accessories for it, something that I have never done. I got the CF Plus Expansion pack and downloaded a ton of software. Lasted 5 months. Then, during a storm I had my iPAQ charging. Well, there was a power surge and the iPAQ was no more.

So I got a 5455. So far, it reminds me of my 3955. Apart from the fact that it has a lower battery time than my 3955, it’s excellent. So far, I have used Pocket Slides to make Flashcards of information I need to study and it has come in handy. I use Textmaker sometimes for heavy essay writing but I still use Pocket Word for notes since it lets me use ink and because it is fast so long as you tap on new Word Document on the Today screen. I tread the news in it, using Mobipocket as a “newspaper” reader, Sync&Go for the headlines and nightly news, Avant Go for the rest (including Thoughts since I am not always at WiFi range). I also have a lot of games and last time I counted, I had 67 apps (most of them freeware but I still have the famous ones like PI, eWallet, and ListPro). The rest of the space I use on DVDs and music. I have 2 128MB cards (SD and CF) and the extra battery makes up for the smaller capacity battery on my 5455. Si far, I am pleased that I entered the Pocket PC world and although I am interested in getting a Palm Zire 7l just to see what its like, I will not leave the PPC arena for a long time.

[Sunnyone]

I was an early adopter of Windows CE 1.0 (clamshell/handheld) Casio Cassiopeia A-10. Got it at Sharper Image, of all places. Boy did I get strange looks in meetings. Upgraded it to CE 2.0. Then the HP came out with the color handhelds and I held off until I couldn't do without a HP620LX. Still have it, but haven't charged it in ages. I kept noticing the palm sized PDAs but never had the desire to check out the Palm Pilots - I didn't think I could make do without the keyboard, such as it was on the HP. Then Pocket PCs came out. I took the plunge and got one of the first HP545s. I liked the form factor so much I got a HP548. Then I got iPAQ envy. I really wanted a screen that was viewable outdoors. So, my next choice was a iPAQ 3670. Got it upgraded with an additional 64MB from Pocket PC Techs. Loved it until the battery died. Then I got an Axim, which is my current Pocket PC. I'll probably keep it for a while because I'm pretty satisfied with it. I plan to see what comes down the pike after Pocket PC 2003.

[ctmagnus]

In 1999 I was in Calgary. I wandered into an Office Depot and, as always, headed straight for the computer department. There were a bunch of "little computers" on display, up at the perfect level to try out. I tried all of them but kept coming back to a Casio something-or-other. I went back to that store several times to play but never actually bought one.

Fast-forward several years: I read about the announcement of the "new Compaq Pocket PCs", including the 64MB 3670 model. I knew instantly I wanted one. But not being organized at the time, I soon forgot.

Then in May 2001 I was browsing the website of a Canadian retailer when I happened upon the most wondrous sight: A bright, shiny iPaq! With twice as much memory as any of the others! I ordered one right away, and my life hasn't been the same since. Except now I want a 5550 'cuz that's the first iPaq since the 3670 that has nothing in common with my grandiose 3670.

[Larrison]

After reading those stories.. I feel like an old stuck-in-the mud.

I used to live by my "Day Timer" -- 6x8, 3 ring binder organizer. It had everything in -- notes, schedules, work tracking, budgets, etc etc . Thick and heavy... and expensive too. Used to cost me around $100-200 every year to update it and buy new pages and organizers for it.

Palms were out and I thought about getting one. But why spend a couple of hundred bucks to get what looked like a computerized address book and scheduler. I was carrying a *heavy* laptop everywhere when I traveled...

Then while I was looking around, I saw these new "Pocket PCs" starting to be announced. The best of them looked like a Compaq IPAQ, and while I had used HPs they IPAQ's looked really cool. Plus you could use them for word and excel and view pictures and e-books, and mp3s.. Man I wanted one.

Of course, IPAQs were almost impossible to get when they first came out, but within 2 weeks or starting the hunt I had one -- a HP 3630 with serial number 4Gxxx. It's still the one I use -- same screen, same battery etc.

I did go out and buy a Stowaway keyboard and a couple of add on battery packs so I can work non-stop on a transcon flight -- or listen to music, and read ebooks, too. I've pretty much resisted the urge to buy a lot for it -- a serial synch cable for travel, a couple of battery packs, a $20 case, the Stowaway keyboard, and 3 (count 'em!) programs -- A diet/ exercise tracker, Pocket Quicken, and "The Sky". Oh yeah, the CF sleeve was $5 after rebate, and I've bought 2 CF cards for added memory (music mostly).

The PDAs still used probably 3-4 hours a day, not including reading time at home, and works fine. I am thinking about getting it upgraded.. but probably won't buy a new one due to the problem in replacing the keyboard, battery packs, CF cards, etc.

Cool machine --

[yawanag]

I had been contemplating getting a LapTop back in 2000. They were quite expensive and I kept telling myself - one day.

I was browsing one day and found the specs on the Hp Jornada 548. I was never crazy about the Palm because in my way of thinking, the Palm was no more than an organizer. I still get provoked when I pull out my T-Mobile and someone says, "Oh, you've got a Palm?'

I chose the HP because at the time, it was the only one I found with 32 MB RAM. Back in those day, 16 MB was good.

I immediately, bought a CF card because I ran out of memory in a flash. I had the thing smokin'. I was volunteering to teach computers to Seniors and they couldn not believe that I could do everything I was teaching them on my HP.

When I heard that Microsoft had gotten together with T-Mobile and was coming out with the Pocket PC Phone Edition. I couldn't wait and then one day back in September of 2002, I came to PocketPcThoughts and they were saying HURRY, if you go to Amazon. com you can get a $250 rebate on the T-Mobile.

I was in love with my HP, but I'm nuts about my T-Mobile.

I've had a few bad experiences since owning one:

1.) My first TM was in the group where the paint was peeling off under the magnets on the cover. Sent it back to be exchanged. Took 2 days.

2.) Installed Nice Start and it froze and had to be sent back. Had to be without it for 7 days, because they were on back order. Thank God, I had my HP for backup.

All in all, I'd say my PPC is more dependable then my Desktop PC.

I don't care how much memory I add, I always seem to run out. Thanks to PPT and Handango.

I'd send my TM for an upgrade to 128 but I can't stand the thought of being without it.

[mc_03]

It all started back in 96 when I first saw a Palm Pilot Pro... I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen in my life, but I couldn't justify buying it...

Then, sometime in the year 2000, I was flipping through Consumer Reports when suddenly 8O 8O 8O What is that nice silver palm? Colour screen? Windows compatible OS? Word documents? MP3s? 3D games? Woah, that's like a whole computer in your pocket! But I didn't really want it THAT badly...

Sometime in 2001, my Mom and Dad wanted PDAs. So, I pointed out that iPaq to them, and they are still using 3650s to this day.

And, for my birthday, May 2002, I got... a Jornada 565! :D I quickly became obsessed with it. Found out all the info I could off sites like these. Started downloading programs, games, configuring the OS to its limits. Within a month, I was well learned in the ways of Pocket PCs. :lol:

And then in November the screen broke. To make a long story short, HP sent me an iPaq 3870 in February. Buggy peice of crap. They want me to send it back. Still waiting for my money. :twisted:

In May, I got an Axim. Like my Jornada, just better! Hope Dell lets me upgrade to PPC 2003 or I will shove my ax down Michael Dell's throat...

And that's it!

[guilmon]

Well, before I bought my e310, I first had a (ughh, dare to say it) Casiopiea be-300. It worked fine for me, until I tryed to put Pocket Quake on it. Only then did I realize what I had bought, a proprietary piece of dog stuff. Finally, I decided it was time to return it and get my two-hundred dollars back, then save up for an E-310. Course enough, being a sophomore in high-school makes it difficult to get any money now adays, but I remembered I still had a reserve fund from my Eigth grade graduation. So I decidied that this was going to be my purchase. When I got home, the first thing I did was install Pocket Quake, and the rest is history.

[delfuhd]

Let's see.. My father had an old IBM Workpad with Palm OS on it, and this was about 3 years ago.. He already had a Palm V and VII, so decided to give the hunky thing to me (it was about the size of an Axim now lol, but compared to the other palms, well.. yeah.) So I used that for a couple months, and lost the stylus. So I got an extra stylus from one of my dad's Palm VII's (he had two.) and used that, but that stylus was to big and broke the casing on the workpad lol..
So my dad let me use one of the Palm VII's, which he never used, it sat in his desk drawer collecting dust.. Lucky me lol, someone had a wireless subscription still on the Palm (I don't know how, why, etc...), but I had wireless on the Palm VII for a good month, with email access and everything, but I guess the guy realized he was still getting charged, and canceled it lol. (Sorry Mr. Wetzel, whoever you are! lol)
Well anyway, that one fell out of my pocket or something, but I lost it nonetheless. So one broken and one lost. A good amount of time went by, I acquired some old palms from friends, and meanwhile my dad had gone through an E-115, and an h3600. He still had the E-115, so he gave thta one to me, which I still have but don't realy use... And now I'm on the h3850 and h3970, and hav egone through tests with various other ppc's, just look at my signature dealy.. So yeah, that's my story. good ol' pocket pc's...

[woa1]

Interesting thread. I bought my first "real" PDA, an HP 200LX, in mid 1994 and have been following them closely since then. Loved the HP since it gave me DOS in my Pocket. I used the 200LX for about a year and a half and then switched to a HP OmniGo 100 in early 1996, intrigued by Pen-use and HWR.
I first heard about Windows CE rumors then code-named "Pegasus" on one of the computer news sites in mid-1996. I followed the info closely since I was already a PDA user and was intrigued by the thought of a Microsoft PDA. My first look at the actual OS was in the October 1996 issue of Microsoft Systems Journal Magazine (I still have the copy somewhere!) which had a 10-page preview on "Pegasus". I was excited since it looked like Windows in my Pocket. I was in Japan when the first CE machines were released in November 1996 and bought one (a Casio Cassiopeia) the first morning they were in stores. Mainly stuck with WinCE & Pocket PCs with a few Palms in between.

My Handheld chronology so far:
200LX, OmniGo 100, Casioppeia 140, Libretto 30, PalmPro, 320LX, 620LX, Rex-3, Everex Freestyle, Casio E-11, Aero 2130, Palm V, Jornada 545, iPAQ 1910

Next: ??? Probably a combo Cell/PDA

[BTS]

I have been using PDAs since the fall of '97. My first was a Palm Pilot Personal. I used it at work to track my students (basically annecdotal records).

Then I picked up my first issue of Pen Computing (days after the Newton died). They went on and on about this marvelous machine. However, the price was just too far out there (gotta love Apple) for me to afford. Although happy with my Pilot it was missing this sense of "there".

The following year I bought a Compaq C Series HPC. Very nice device (modem, PC card slot, etc.) but just was too awkward to carry around. Meanwhile, I still wanted that true handwriting recognition (not graffiti) that Newton offered. I bought an Everex Freestyle Palm PC. It was "okay" but man was it slow!!!

Then in the spring of 2000 I read about the Pocket PC. What a fantastic machine and it offered the full handwriting recognition (trascriber). That was the machine for me so I bought a Casio EM500 - the screen was the best of its time with very little "spiking".

Now it's three years later and I'm waiting (and hoping on PPC 2003). The new devices need to be faster. Period. The "dark side" is luring me. I played with the Zire 71 tonight and was just blown away by its speed. I would, however, miss the ability to assign multiple categories to my appointments, tasks, etc. So PPC will probably remain my OS of choice but I'm still waiting for that ultimate machine (aren't we all). Mine would be: J568 form factor (I LOVE that flip lid - what a slick looking machine!), Ipaq 3900 series screen, dual slots of the Toshiba. Here's hoping!

[Anthony Caruana]

Way back in 1999 I bought one of the first Windows CE devices; a HP 320LX. This one of the first CE devices around and it boasted a 640 * 240 mono screen. Cost me a packet (about $AUS1400 including a PCMCIA 28K Modem).

I traded that device to a colleague for a Cassiopeia E10. That was a great Palm Size PC and made me into a Pocket PC/ PDA addict.

I sold the E10 on eBay and bought a Compaq Aero 2630 - my first colour device. This was a great device and made sure that I never considered a mono device again.

The Aero went the way of eBay when I got a HP Jornada 548. This was a fantastic device. Good size, perofrmed OK and bulletproof reliable.

When the time came to look for a new device the choice was simple - iPAQ or iPAQ. So I bought an iPAQ. I wen for a 3850 and accessorised like crazy. CF Sleeve, PCMCIA sleeve, foldaway keyboard, cases, styli, etc. I used the puppy for about 10onths and have only just sold it and all my accessories.

So today I have...nothing :( . But I have just ordered an Axim X5 Advanced with a few accessories. But until it arrives I am missing meetings, not taking notes, not surfing the net from my sofa.

[Bruno Figueiredo]

Well, here's my story:

My uncle had just bought a Casio Clamshell Electronic Diary in 1993 and was showing it off to me. I always were very fond of gadgets, so I was awed. Then, he had an old Philips Electronic Calculator with phonebook and he gave it to me. It took just 50 numbers but I loved it and carried it everywhere.

Then, one day, i was running from a heist a couple o' guys were trying to pull on me to take my walkman on the train station and it went off my pocket and the screen was gone.

I was totally hooked on it, but my parents couldn't afford a replacement and i was a student at the time. It was summer and i got a job. I worked a full month and got just enough money to buy a Casio Electronic Diary. Boy I loved it with all the icons and things i could put in it. Then, one day i put down my coat on a bench and i don't know how, the screen broke. I was crushed again.

My GF at the time (now my wife) gave me another Casio Diary and I was happy with it until I saw the PocketPC. Color, Games, MP3... If it just weren't so expensive... My GF always backed me out of buying it, though then i could afford it. I thought of stealing, buying one in secret, you name it, but i just had to have one.

So I tried to convert her to it. So this year, by March we were seeing the Jornadas 568 and thought we could buy one for each but it was 400 Euros each. It was still expensive for what it did IMO.

One week later, we stopped by a Fnac store (I live in Portugal, Europe) and saw a Toshiba e570 for just 250 Euro (its about the same in US$). They were still priced 750 on the computer! So we bought 2, 2 CF 250Mb cards and now we are totally hooked on it (maybe I'm a bit more). The e570 was already discontinued but it was and is a very powerfull device, great screen, speed and expansion capabilities.

I just can't live without it... :ppclove:

[xoiph]

My uncle runs a pawn shop where they get all sorts of neat PDAs every day :scatter: I had a few Palms back in the day (III, IIIx, IIIc, Vx, m100, m505) but I didn't own a real handheld until I bought an iPAQ 36xx for about $200 a month after they came out. :mrgreen:

[SherryG]

I looked at Palms and Pocket PCs and thought long and hard about which one to choose. I finally decided I wanted the PPC platform, so then I thoroughly checked out the iPaqs and they were good, very good. But I dithered and digressed. So I researched some more. I simply just could not justify the cost. Then I started grad school for an MS/CIS and all the books are e-books. I attend an online unversity and the classes only last six weeks, so that meant hours staring at a monitor (even as fast as I read, which is very fast indeed). I quickly grew to hate that. So I decided the time had come to get a PPC, something I could stick in my purse and then read my textbooks at my convenience.

As fate would have it, :) Toshiba released the e750 right at the time I decided to buy. It had everything I wanted--both CF card and SD card slots without an expansion pack, a clear bright color screen that is easy to read, 400MHZ processor. :mrgreen: I am so happy with it. :D