Network connection

[concorde]

I am thinking of buying a PDA and CF network card to conect to my network, my questions are -

Is network access virtually instant or is there a delay in getting a connection?
How long will I be able to stay connected, what sort of battery life can I expect?
Do these cards connect to any type of wireless access point?
What would be the best PDA for this? my budget is tight


Thanks

[Thinkingmandavid]

First thing is finding one that fits your budget. you are going to hear a lot of ideas and everyone has their view point, but in the end after you have tested a few, choose what feels good to you and you are comfortable using day in and day out. With that said, you do have a few options, such as the ipaq that comes with the blue tooth and the wi fi readiness. if you are going to use it for work then you wil be entering the settings for your work unless it searches and finds it automatically. If you are interested in being able to go to wi fi hot spots and using it, then you will be just as ready, it should search and find the connection automatically.
I dont know how much you do or dont know. so here goes a little.
these are both signals that will allow you to access internet access. If at work it should be free, other places have fees such as at starbucks. The connecton speed will be determined at how fast it finds and reads the connection, and the speed of the connection itself, reliability, stuff like that.
battery life is different from person to person. I may only using the net for ten minutes once a day. YOu may be on it every hour for ten minutes. So you will have to end up charging your battery during that day. the more graphics the more it uses the battery.
you can get a dell axim for a couple hundred, and it will have the secure digital and the compact flash cards. there is cf cards that are made to use wi fi and blue tooth. secure digital is soon to come. you can get a pda that is already to connect, such as teh toshiba 750 it is wi fi ready and has both secure digital and compact flash. and of course the afore mentioned ipaq which is expensive.

[jimski]

Yes, after you have initialized communication with an access point the first time, the connection is virtually instant (provided you have WiFi enabled on your PPC).

You can assume that the WiFi radio will reduce battery life by about 1/2. On my iPAQ 5450, I cannot expect more than about 2 hours of use with WiFi turned on. For this reason, you may want to consider a device with a removable battery. I now have three standard and one extended battery and can make it through any kind of day without relying on AC.

There are different types of WiFi. Currently, there is 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g. You will find 802.11b being used in all current built-in devices and most CF cards. This is the most common (but slowest format-if you consider 11Mbps slow).

The built-in's like iPAQ 5450 and Toshiba 750 are simpler to setup, but more expensive. An Axim with a CF WiFi card will also do the trick. Just remember to include the CF card in your cost analysis.

[Thinkingmandavid]

That is true. Dont forget to list/write it all down as you try to figure out what works best for you. If you want to keep your cost down it may be buying the wi fi card, but then again keep your eyes open for special deals at major retail stores.
Dont let sales people talk you into buying what you dont want and/or buy now crap. buy when you are ready and what you want.