What happened to PDA Choices?

[pjtrader]

In my previous thread I mention that I have a PDA that may be dying...so I shopped for a new one yesterday.

I am disappointed at the lack of choices out there for US buyers. Am I missing something?

There's one of the slew of iPaqs - all of which seem vastly overpriced for what you get. Or there's Dell.

What happened to the vanilla PDA - one that's NOT a phone or GPS?

I'll be honest enough to say that although I've been a PPC fan since the first one came out (I have fond memories of my Cassiopeia EM500), I'm seriously considering the Palm LifeDrive. I can live with the lag time between apps opening.

But it begs the question - with 2 and 4G flash drives now available, when will PPCs start to give their users some decent space? And where did all the PPC manufacturers go?

[Sven Johannsen]

There are others out there, just not as readily available in the US. Toshiba still makes them and there are the LOOX that are popular in Europe. Not much more choice on the other side. There's Sony...oh wait they got out of the market, and Handspring...no, they got bought by Palm. I guess there's just Palm, or whatever they are called this week.

Memory costs money. People look at price tags. You did, when you looked at HP. For storage I like the idea I can upgrade it, because it goes in a slot.

[surur]

On ppc you procure your own storage ;)

A Dell Axim x50v plus 4GB microdrive costs about the same as a Lifedrive. And when your HDD dies (as they are apt to do) you can just replace it.

You complain about lack of choice, but both HP and Dell has got quite a wide selection of nice devices at the moment.

http://www.expansys-usa.com/d_pocketpc.asp

Looking at this expansys USA page there's PPC's from Dell, HP, Asus, Acer, Fujitsu Siemens, I-mate, E-ten, and even panasonic available to purchase right now. Its a pity that PPC's are so under-represented in retail USA, but may I suggest looking online instead for a much larger selection.

Surur

[pjtrader]

That's one site that's not bookmarked for me...thanks for the pointer.

All my online sites seem to be Dell (which is what I'll probably get again) or iPaq.

[surur]

The Dell is currently a good choice for Americans, due to brilliant value for money and a lot of power. You would not be compromising by getting a Dell x50v.

Surur