Need help deciding on a PDA. [Archive]

View Full Version : Need help deciding on a PDA.

spinedoc

02-04-2003, 01:34 AM

OK the last time I used a PDA was a Palm Vx my brother gave me, it served its purpose well and now is collecting dust in my office somewhere in a box.

I bought a e740 and brought it home, never having experienced the magic that is pocket pc 2002. After reading about pocket pc2002 and all the devices I was so incredibly psyched that the technology had progressed so insanely far in the 2 years since I used a PDA. Needless to say after countless dissapointments I returned the e740. Now I have no idea what PDA to get.

I am really REALLY leaning towards the hp1910, but the lack of SDIO is really a turn off. I would have loved to have been able to use one of the upcoming SD 802.11b cards. I have heard of the 1911 (sp?) with bluetooth, but hell I need wifi. Plus thats a Europe only model, I;ll pass on the vat and the warranty issues. I had also read somewhere that it might be possible to make the 1910 SD slot SDIO with one wire change and if someone wrote the drivers, lets hope so.

I am also considering a Dell Axim, they are the same specs as the new ipaqs and my old toshiba, but without the ridiculous price. The Tungsten has crossed my mind, but I think its even more overpriced for what you get.

I have changed my mind about pocket pc2002 quite a bit. If what they promises was actually true I would have NO problem spending 800+ dollars for a nice unit. Alas no one can really justify spending all the money for a pocket pc as anything but an expensive gadget, especially more true as newer and newer cell phones and multi function units come out. Pocket PC is a huge piece of garbage for countless reasons, but its the only alternative we have.

Dream machine for me: HP1910 with SDIO, built in wifi and friggin Pocket word that formatted word docs properly!!!

spursdude

02-04-2003, 01:55 AM

If size doesn't matter, I would go with the Axim for price and expandibility; also the screen and battery life. Or, have you thought about getting a PPC phone edition?

Can I ask why you think PPC is a buncha garbage? Any reasons other than Pocket Word?

There are a few new word processors that just came out for the PPC which keep formatting and are really very powerful. I forget their names off-hand (this is where other people jump in with names and links :wink: )

67stang

02-04-2003, 01:56 AM

CodeSurge

02-04-2003, 02:29 AM

How about the ViewSonic V35?

It's a nice machine that's not quite as small as the H1910 is (but comes in second best in that category), but has a SDIO expansion slot.

In other words, it's kind of a compromise between the H1910 and the Axim X5 - it's got a relatively slim form factor, and yet possesses all the expandability of the SDIO format! :)

spinedoc

02-04-2003, 02:42 AM

First off please understand I am not a troll. I originally wanted a pocket PC to write patient notes to then print them out thru the wifi. After purchasing the e740 I realized that this would not be possible, at least not in a way that would save me time. I dont have anything against the e740 in general, other than extremely poor battery life, it is a beautiful unit. My problem is with Pocket PC Operating system in general. I felt very ripped off when I tried to do numerous things in this OS. Case in point:

1) Handwriting recognition. Holycrap how much more horrible could this get? Sometimes I would sit there for 3-4 minutes just to input a lowercase L. The recognition is not smooth at all, and very very inaccurate, certainly not what I would expect from this level of price. Maybe its what I should expect from a 400mhz processor, but from what I was led to believe the recognition was good. The transcriber option is awesome in theory, but awful in actual application.

2) Pocket Word. What a bunch of garbage. Every one that spent money on a pocket pc should be outraged. This is primarily a notepad and a rudimentary file viewer. Is it really that difficult for MS to let us view and format tables and such? The best solution is textmaker, and that is only a sub par solution. On top of this even if you can view and format word documents the round trip from the PC to the PDA, and back to the PC ruins the file formatting.

3) File Explorer. Whats the deal with this thing? The folders dont expand easily, you cannot press a back key and go back in directories, its a hassle to set up networked files, you cannot open a file on a network but have to copy it to local memory, syncing often renders a file "corrupt", etc etc. If MS spent 20 years developing their PC file explorer and getting people used to it, then they should keep it consistent. For a long time windows user it was confusing.

4) Battery life. With Wifi OFF I was lucky to get 2-3 hours of dim backlight use. With wifi on it was more like an hour. Now I know that I wont be able to use this thing all day seeing patients, although that should be the case, but 2-3 hours? And when it was off it only lasted me 2 days!?! 2 days standby?

I could keep going on and on about why pocket pc is garbage OS. Hey, I love gadgets too, thats why Im still buying one. But I dont feel justified spending more than $300 for one as a pure gadget to play with and to have a PIM. I mean without word processing functionality, without halfway decent handwriting recog., etc etc, you guys all just paid 300 to 600 dollars for a PIM!!! Sure the games are cool (Gameboy) and the MP3's are nice (Walkman), thats why I will prob pick up a HP1910.

Like I said though, I dont want to be a troll. I just think that for what they are charging for these things and how they make it seem like they will change the world really irk me. I think the only one who is getting it right is Dell who has the axim for a reasonable $300 with a CF and SD slot and the other specs identical to the top of the lines from other brands.

I guess there is always Pocket PC 2003...

PapaSmurfDan

02-04-2003, 02:52 AM

I will second the motion for a Dell Axim. I own one (and I was taking a close look at an NX60 if I went Palm) and I love it. The screen is great, and I feel its better than the NX60's on my eyes. Battery life is probally the best out of any the current PPC's. From what I have heard the 1910 is not too stellar in this department.

There are a few new word processors that just came out for the PPC which keep formatting and are really very powerful. I forget their names off-hand (this is where other people jump in with names and links :wink: )

The word processor you are refering to is TextMaker. I tried out the eval, and yes, it is very powerful. In many ways, I could never have to touch a desktop with it. However I am not buying it until the upcomming spreadsheet program, PlanMaker, is released.

Personaly I hate PocketOutlook (the pim functions) and PocketWord, however they do the job. PocketExcel was the only built in app that doesn't disappoint me. The OS is not that bad (still could be better) concidering how much functionality there is, it is PocketOffice that blows. With that beside, if you want a Palm, go get a PalmOS5 device. Documents To Go is a great package (and comes with most palm devices except the new sony brick NX90), and the OS5 devices are nearing the same level of multimedia and wireless capalbilites as the current PPCs have. The T|T should be getting a 100 buck price drop soon, making it a bit more attractive now. The NX Clies are just too expensive to justify the extra features (High-Res screen), MAJOR ANNOYANCES (Are you listening sony? You would of had an NX60 sale if that CF slot worked with all CF cards and not just your own!), and uncertian upgrade path (no word on if any of the PalmOS5 devices could be upgraded to PalmOS6 when that is released).

BTW, if you buy the 1915 (if it is a true rumor and actully released) from europe, you do not pay any VAT (this assumes your not in the EU). If the retailer is forcing you to pay VAT on an non EU shipment, find a new retailer. Also chances are HP will release the 1915 here, it does not make any sense for them to do otherwise.

But before you really write off the lack of SDIO or intergrated BT/WiFi, do you really need them badly? Also what are your dissapointments with PPC and the e740? I crossed off the 740 off my list of potential PPC's due to the massive amounts of problems I heard with them.

-Dan

spinedoc

02-04-2003, 02:58 AM

PapaSmurf

I am looking more and more at the Dell Axim, I am quite impressed with the price, and I hear the screen is one of the best.

My problem is I am a small small gadget freak. The 1910 appeals to me on a smallness level, stick it in your pocket and go. All they needed to do was have the SD slot be a SDIO, darn darn darn.

So now Im split between the Axim and the 1910, and yes the wifi is CRUCIAL for me, so it will probably end up being the Axim. At least that will tie me over until the 1915 possibly comes out in the states.

And I also evaluated textmaker and found it very lacking. Better than Pocket word, but it still could not properly format basic tables and cells for me. (for the record documents to go would not display my merged cells, so there really is no viable option right now).

PapaSmurfDan

02-04-2003, 03:29 AM

Heh, I should of waited a bit before I read this thread the first time, now that you left some of your peeves about PPC, I will fire back some responses.

1) Transcirber Sucks. I would like to hear from someone who has a 95% accuracy rate with it (that is what I had on my trained Newton MP100). First of all, there is no learning in transcriber, so it can't get better. That is the main factor that renders it useless. Second, and this is the important one, the PPC/Palm screens are all too small for anything but a quick jot, and even then, why bother converting? With you being an ex-palm user, why didn't you use the graffiti emulator? If I need to enter more than a paragraph or two of text, I break out my Pocketop keyboard and use that.

2) Well, did you e-mail the textmaker guys? They seem to want as much user input as possible.

3) There are free and cheap replacements for file explorer. Search around for one you like. Personaly, it is not that bad. If you want to mount network drives, use NetUse, it will allow for streaming of network files. NetUse is free.

4) Well, the Dell is great in this aspect with an extended battery comming out soon (that may tripple its runtime). I can get about 5-8 hours (this depends on what I am doing) out of my dell with the backlight up 3 notches from off and about 3-4 hours with my wifi card on.

I could keep going on and on about why pocket pc is garbage OS. Hey, I love gadgets too, thats why Im still buying one. But I dont feel justified spending more than $300 for one as a pure gadget to play with and to have a PIM. I mean without word processing functionality, without halfway decent handwriting recog., etc etc, you guys all just paid 300 to 600 dollars for a PIM!!! Sure the games are cool (Gameboy) and the MP3's are nice (Walkman), thats why I will prob pick up a HP1910.

Umm, I really hate to say it, but both Palms and PPC's are still gadgets.

-Dan

Janak Parekh

02-04-2003, 03:36 AM

1) Transcirber Sucks. I would like to hear from someone who has a 95% accuracy rate with it (that is what I had on my trained Newton MP100).
It depends on what you're doing with it. For just English note-taking, I can achieve 95%. For proper nouns, forget it. :)

By the way, I think it does a primitive form of learning via the user dictionary.

The trick with Pocket PC is to learn the different SIPs and when to use them. I have very little trouble and am more productive than I was with my Palm.

4) Well, the Dell is great in this aspect with an extended battery comming out soon (that may tripple its runtime). I can get about 5-8 hours (this depends on what I am doing) out of my dell with the backlight up 3 notches from off and about 3-4 hours with my wifi card on.
Indeed, batterylifewise the Dell is one of the best units, certainly better than the e740.

Umm, I really hate to say it, but both Palms and PPC's are still gadgets.
I dunno; I perceive my PPC as a handheld computer, more than a gadget, and as such I'm very happy with it.

--janak

spursdude

02-04-2003, 03:36 AM

1) Handwriting recognition. Holycrap how much more horrible could this get? Sometimes I would sit there for 3-4 minutes just to input a lowercase L. The recognition is not smooth at all, and very very inaccurate, certainly not what I would expect from this level of price. Maybe its what I should expect from a 400mhz processor, but from what I was led to believe the recognition was good. The transcriber option is awesome in theory, but awful in actual application.

I have noticed that some people have better "luck" with Transcriber. Some people with good handwriting have trouble with it; others with bad handwriting do great with it. I've found that Transcriber often struggles writing individual letters, like a lowercase L, mainly because a lowercase L could be an I, 1, L, /, (, ), or !. Transcriber works a lot off of context it seems - try writing a word with the letter L inside it, and it should pick it up fine. A lot of Transcriber is just getting used to it and learning some of its little tricks. Believe me, once you can "figure it out," it's incredibly powerful and speedy.

I definitely feel your pain on Pocket Word. Thankfully, I rarely, if ever, need to use tables or any complex formatting in Word.

File Explorer is also fairly crippled...why MS did some of the things they did in File Explorer perhaps we'll never know. If you do get a new PPC, be sure to check out some alternate file explorers like Resco File Explorer (http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=1&jid=B66E58867FCB1BFBB2BB5B1ED16237EE&productId=11118&optionId=1_2_2&productType=2&catalog=30&txtSearch=resco+file+explorer&sectionId=0&platformId=2).

Battery life is mainly an e740 problem. With the Axim, you can get at least 5 hours while using WiFi...if you buy an extended battery, you'll get even more use out of it.

you guys all just paid 300 to 600 dollars for a PIM!!!

I would disagree...the Pocket PC definitely does more than just PIM functions. Like you mentioned, I do music and games. Also, videos, recording, tuning, reading, and a whole lot more. Then with WiFi, you can get online too...

I dont want to be a troll
Of course you're not a troll...you've got reasonable gripes that a lot of PPC users are annoyed by.

I think the Axim is a great fit for you....

spursdude

02-04-2003, 03:44 AM

1) Transcirber Sucks. I would like to hear from someone who has a 95% accuracy rate with it (that is what I had on my trained Newton MP100). First of all, there is no learning in transcriber, so it can't get better. That is the main factor that renders it useless.

I've never actually measured my accuracy (is there any way to get a number?), but I think my accuracy is up somewhere around there. Granted, Transcriber's learning is limited; but it's important to remember that the user can learn. there's so much I've figured out about Transcriber...like double-tapping a word then doing a down-up stroke pops up a bunch of spelling suggestions. Just doing a down-up stroke brings up a punctuation pad. One also learns what method of writing a letter works best for Transcriber to work.

Also, Transcriber does have some method of learning. On the Transcriber bar, when you hit the cursive "A," you get a list of both what methods of writing a letter Transcriber will recognize. You can also select which one you like best, which helps increase accuracy a bit.

Second, and this is the important one, the PPC/Palm screens are all too small for anything but a quick jot, and even then, why bother converting?
I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about, but with Transcriber, when you've filled the screen with scribble, you can write over your old strokes and continue to write, effectively allowing you to write paragraphs at a time without waiting for it to convert.

After a summer of using Transcriber as my one and only input method, Transcriber is one of my best friends. :)

PapaSmurfDan

02-04-2003, 04:19 AM

Also, Transcriber does have some method of learning. On the Transcriber bar, when you hit the cursive "A," you get a list of both what methods of writing a letter Transcriber will recognize. You can also select which one you like best, which helps increase accuracy a bit.

The setting screen, the Newton had a screen exactly like Transcrbier's, and you needed to go through every letter before you could get a decent accuracy rate off the bat. What the Newton did was everytime you corrected it, it updated its own internal logic. It had to, or else my handwriting would never have the 95% accuracy rate(I have been accused of being a Doctor based on my handwriting). After about a month of use on a Newton, it could do a good job at converting your handwriting. I was able to take notes rather quick on it and rarely have to correct it. I never had to change my handwriting style to get my Newton to convert it.

Now, 8 years later, I try out Transcriber. At first glance, Transcriber seems allmost identicle to what the Newton had. Same type of interface with the double tapping and setup screen is allmost letter for letter the same. However, under the hood, I think it may be watered down. If I got a whole sentance with out gibberish, I am amaised. Once I setup transcriber, it was a bit better (I would say around 50% accuracy), but the fact remains that the screen is too small for me to write on (3 words per line and about 6 lines per screen, not much) and I can type faster with my Pocketop keyboard. Also PPC is missing a much needed shape recogniser.

I may try using Transcriber again and see if it does really learn. Maybe the PPC has a longer learning curve than the Newton did. I learned Graffiti early on too, so at least Graffiti has been second nature to me all along. And the fact that you can switch between Transcirber, Graffiti, Keyboard, etc makes PPC very user freindly. Or maybe I just need to get a used MP2100 for note taking (my MP100 is dead :( ).

-Dan

spinedoc

02-04-2003, 10:26 AM

PapaSmurf, I wholeheartedly agree on the 50% recognition rate on the transcriber. And I believe the transcriber is the most accurate of all the methods! The problems I had with the lowercase L and such were specifically with the regular character recognizer, not with transcriber. The whole transcriber thing I think is an awesome awesome invention (or steal from Newton), but it needs to be beefed up. 95% with transcription for some of you guys ?!?! God I wish I could even get it to 70%. As for using grafitti, I was never a big fan of it and after 2 years am quite rusty at it. Grafitti is one thing I will never miss.

But Im psyched up that the Axim has great battery life and its price, I see Linksys CF wifi cards are 60 bucks out the door on pricewatch. So for $360 I can have a top of the line specs PDA with wifi and a SD slot to boot.

I will still always look at the HP1910 when I am in CompUSA and sigh, LOL. But darnit that wifi access is CRUCIAL for me, and I dont think Bluetooth will cut it.

By the way, I did email textmaker a couple of times, very lengthy emails addressing my issues and specifically how I needed the software to work in a clinical setting. You would figure they would see the huge market for making their software work in these types of settings. I dont need to input more than a paragraph or so for each patient, so a PDA with decent handwriting recogn would be fine, but I need my tables in the docs, sigh. Textmaker never got back to me though.

Anyone know if the 400mhz is enough to do an voice recognition? Or are we not there yet?

PetiteFlower

02-04-2003, 07:50 PM

I've had great success using the Letter Recognizer (not the Graffiti-like Block Recognizer). It's not perfect but that's more my fault then anything; it sometimes thinks my l's are x's for example, if I write them at too much of an angle. It's not REALLY fast but it's better then the soft keyboard. Most importantly though it's EASY, I only had to look up one or 2 letters to see how to write them, there's not really anything to learn. Nothing will approach real typing speed though, wish I could afford a keyboard right now.

There is a voice recorder on my Axim but as far as I can tell, it won't transcribe from voice. But maybe it would be fastest for you to record the notes by voice and then transcribe them later into desktop Word docs :)

Weyoun6

02-05-2003, 12:25 AM

For input perfection, there is always fitaly.

Janak Parekh

02-05-2003, 01:34 AM

For input perfection, there is always fitaly.
This is true. I'm getting about 99.99% recognition rate on Fitaly -- the only problem I have is on the letters/symbols, and you can change that to use strokes for perfect recognition too. :D Now to get the speed up...

--janak

taxus

02-05-2003, 03:18 AM

I agree with the gripe about File Explorer. I hate it. I want to select the columns I want to see, I want a horizontal scrolling bar if needed, and the same goes for Contacts, PocketWord, etc.

At least there are third-party file explorers. I have tried all the free ones I could find. :)

PocketExplorer (http://www.citadeldevelopment.com/)
Nice interface, but only one window pane to display the tree, doesn't support multiple selection, and has some problems with making shortcuts (i.e. doesn't work too good).

All-explorer (http://www.all-locations.com/)
Too slow to load, rather big, and requires activation. It may be free, but it's a hassle. (I tried version 2.5.)

GSFinder+TQ (http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA003011/)
No tap&hold, no drag&drop. I didn't think much of the interface.

I currently use Total Commander CE (http://www.ghisler.com/ce.htm). With the Utah font (a condensed font) from the Agfa font pack for PalmReader Pro, I'm now pretty satisfied with my current file explorer (but not with the Agfa font package, which I only use with Total Commander!). I'd like a better designed UI, but you can't beat the price (free). It supports multiple selection only by wildcards (i.e. impossible to select more than one file with the stylus), but it supports ZIP files - can zip and unzip and display a ZIP file's content as if it were a folder.

PocketPCFreewares (http://www.pocketpcfreewares.com) (unfortunately only in French/German/Portuguese) lists another free file explorer which I didn't know: FileManCE2 (http://www.filemance2.cjb.net/). Looks worth checking out. Doesn't seem to support Zip though.

ipaq38vette

02-05-2003, 03:48 AM

The absolute downright worst program in the PPC OS is Pocket IE. Now that I have said that, I get very good acuracy in Transcriber. My only extremly annoying bug is the scrolling. Transcriber is unuseable in any app with scrolling because it just draws on the scrollbar for a while before it picks it up. A nice feature would be deactivation of Transcriber when the bar is tapped. Why couldn't that have been included? Its so simple.

Janak Parekh

02-05-2003, 06:00 AM

A nice feature would be deactivation of Transcriber when the bar is tapped. Why couldn't that have been included? Its so simple.
Wow, I didn't know that limitation existed until I just tried it. A small mitigating factor is that you can tap the arrows though. I guess Transcriber doesn't recognize scrollbars. I wonder if Calligrapher does...

--janak