First time PDA buyer "need help"?

[EightEight]

:D Looking at the HP iPaq rx3715, thinking off buying, but a friend told me that I should buy a VGA pda, and he told me that the CPU on the rx3715 is slow. HELP - NEED SO ADVICE - THANK YOU ALL. :oops:

[surur]

To see what you are getting read this review on the rx3715. http://www.pdagold.com/articles/detail.asp?a=199

It seems fast enough, and comes with an excellent software bundle and all the connectivity needed. VGA is nice, but this device has a balance of other features, such as excellent battery life, camera and the very nice Nevo software (which cant be bought, it only comes bundled) which may make up for it.

VGA is very nice, and a Dell x50v can be got for cheaper than this device. The disadvantages is the poorer battery life and the lack of the comprehensive multimedia software. An experienced user however would probably want to choose their own software in any case. A review of the high-end VGA pocketpc's can be found here: http://www.mobile-review.com/pda/review/vga-comparing-en.shtml

So it depends on your priorities. I have the excellent Loox 720, a VGA pocketpc with all the trimmings, and would never go back to a low resolution screen. Its however one of the most expensive PPC's around at the moment (next to the hp 4700 ) but you get what you pay for. You will have to read the reviews and make up your own mind.

Surur

[Menneisyys]

The rx3715 is by no means slow. The device is a very nice one.

I, however, would also buy a VGA device because they are not much more expensive than the 3715 and are still much better in almost everything but the battery life (check out http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39619 on the latter). Check out http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=117248 or http://www.pocketmatrix.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21050 on the available VGA devices.

[Sven Johannsen]

I don't think my 3715 is slow. It is as snappy as my X50v. The strong point on the 3715 is it's excellent multimedia capabilities. The bundled programs really enhance that aspect. Not only does it have Nevo, the 'universal' remote control software it also has the PPC half of an HP media server set that will let you view on the PPC or control on the PC your media content over WiFi. The available update to Media Player 10 on the 3715 gives you some wonderful capabilities for media synchronization between the desktop and the PPC. ( I don't believe there is a VGA PPC with Pocket MP 10 yet).

I think VGA must be discussed in two modes. The standard which has the views on the PPC essentially the same as on a standard QVGA machine and the so called 'true' VGA which displays 4 times the screen real estate but at the cost of tiny type/icons/etc. Certainly the normal view gives you clearer displays as you are using twice as many dots in the same space to do the picture...better resolution. I find the display on the 3715 very good, even for media stuff like video. Note that there have been many disappointments about vidoe viewing on the VGA PPCs. The Dell actually fills the screen with the usual 320x420 PPC formatted video, but others seem to display that in a quarter of the 640x480 screen. Sure you can encode the video at 640x480, but that is four times the size, and takes more horsepower to move all those pictures around.

For my purposes the X50v is the machine of choice, crisper screen, VGA out capability, dual flash memory slots, lots of ROM, etc. but I use it as a work machine.

If your purposes are basic personal management and lots of entertainment, the 3715 is a great box, with lots of features in that genre, including the camera (which is no Nikon, but is passable for snapshots).

A lot depends on what you are going to do with the thing.