PDA blues

Luffy321

Hi im not sure if this is the right place to put this but pda's and phones go hand in hand these days. Anyway i need a pda and have been doing some research on which to buy for quite some time now but im going round in circles.The main use for the pda is to transport and play media files.

My criteria is as followed:
-Wifi/bluetooth
-Good size and resolution screen to play video files
-touchscreen
-624mhz or higher
-easy email access
-64 ram or higher
-budget £500

If you are feeling bored or have some ideas i would very much appreciate your help.
Thank you

banger9365

HTC touch diamond look just about right to me
Qualcomm® MSM7201A™ 528 MHz
Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
Touch-sensitive navigation control
Tri-band: 900/1800/1900 MHz, GSM/GPRS/EDGE, HSDPA & WiFi
and GPS (no software)
and it's only £399 from mobile fun sim free

i've had quit a few of the HTC phones/pda and i like them put there not every body tast

Cavey

To transport and play media files....

iPod Touch in 16Gb or 32Gb versions. £183 refurbished on expansys.com

It's what it is designed for and it has WiFi and bluetooth support. For web access it has a decent browser, although I have no experience with its email abilities. The biggest issue seems to be the limit of its format support - it doesn't support formats beyond H.264 and MPEG4 in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov formats... until you get VLC running, that is.

If you actually want the phone aspect as well, the Mhz rating is somewhat misleading if you are attempting to use it as a gauge of speed. Generally, the Windows mobiles with Qualcomm processors are suffering from a lack of graphics drivers which leads to not so perfect video playback (it was just as good on my old phone which had a 200Mhz TI OMAP processor). Sure, if you re-encode the video files and use The Core Media Player this has minimal effects, but it's a bit of an annoyance. Updates are in the pipeline, but we've been waiting a while. See https://www.htcclassaction.org for more on that.

The Touch Diamond is a nice bit of kit (with a Qualcomm processor and apparently is better than the last generation of devices), but it is limited to 4Gb internal memory. With other phones they often have MicroSD/MiniSD slots that allow for the expansion of the available space by 8Gb (or bigger) cards. You can also get the TyTN II/Kaiser/Vario II/etc... and the soon to be released Raphael/Touch Pro (both Qualcomm based) that have keyboards built in which make email slightly easier. However, the screen and interface still can't really match the iPod Touch and iPhone.

Also, I was browsing around and found this MWg Atom Life for £200 -

http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=161051

Now it has an Intel XScale processor, which I don't really know much about. It is clocked at 624Mhz, but it might still be slower than the 500Mhz Qualcomm or 400Mhz Samsung chips that other devices run on or require more power. What I do know is that they seem to be unpopular with the manufacturers (who appear to be currently favouring Qualcomm chips) and, at £200, I must assume it is a generation or so older. Doesn't mean it would not be suitable for you though.

Also, iPhones should be appearing on eBay soon (same notes as iPod Touch) and iPhone 3G should be on PAYG with O2 before Christmas (I'll guess three to four months).

Luffy321

Thank you for your suggestions, i will research the HTC diamond and as for iphone there are many small things that bug me about it such as ipod exclusive headphone jack, contract only unless you hack it, and something like it cant connect to other phones via bluetooth unless its an iphone and is why my friend is selling his for £80 and i wasnt interested.

Cavey

Luffy321 wrote: »

Thank you for your suggestions, i will research the HTC diamond and as for iphone there are many small things that bug me about it such as ipod exclusive headphone jack, contract only unless you hack it, and something like it cant connect to other phones via bluetooth unless its an iphone and is why my friend is selling his for £80 and i wasnt interested.

The headphone jack on HTC devices is a custom mini-usb jack that an adapter fits into. With my Kaiser I had an adapter supplied, but on the Hermes I had to buy one. On the older devices it was some form of 2.5mm jack that I found it even harder to find an adapter for. You should find that there are adapters available for the iPhone/iPod touch sockets and that, as time goes by, more get released.

Luffy321

Thing is the HTC diamond and iphones are both classiefield as smartphones/phones but im really just looking for a pda, i have a phone which im quite pleased with. And when i said touchscreen i meant one that i could use a stylus with.

Edit:

Ok ive pretty much found that ipaq is the direction i need to be be looking at since they do oldschool pda's. 2 models that im looking at is ipaq 110 vs ipaq 214, all i need to know now is which out of these 2 models are better for video and games other than that they pretty much have the same stats and do the same stuff.

Once again all help is much appreciated.

Cavey

The important difference between those two is the 3.5" QVGA screen on the 110 vs the 4" VGA screen on the 214. Sure the 214 is bigger, but it has a bigger battery and will generally be slightly more competent.

Cost on expansys is £173 for the ipaq 114 (similar to the 110) and £235 for the 214. Only problem there is they are ordered on request, so could have a bit of a lead time.

I'd pay the extra £60 for the VGA screen, but the QVGA should be perfectly adequate if it is not as important to you.

Luffy321

Thank you cavey you have been very helpful on this little quest. I think i will choose the 214 model, the only downside to the model is its big size and low sound through speakers. Both of which i can live with since i take my bag everywhere and i dont see myself playing audio files loudly on buses and train. Plus if i order from hp direct its £179.

One more thing, considering my brief at the top and the fact that i didnt want the phone option, do you think im making a good choice?

Anyway *clicks thanks*

diamonds

depends on what mobile you have ?

i have had since last may a N95 & recently a BlackBerry 8120 ( which will soon do streaming youtube etc on a software upgrade thats why I upgraded to non 3g )

to be honesst the BB is not 3G but it kicks the N95 to the floor, its browser is slightly less faster but i mean slightly

I used to carry a mp3 & mobile in my pockets & a
laptop & pda & mp4 archos player in my bag

now I carry 1 and a keyring charger lead for a 9V square battery if needs

bag or not its a lot easier & lighter

my BlackBerry gives me my e-mails as instant they come in to my inbox ( no manual/time delayed e-mail checking ), stores all my media including WAV files ( N95 couldnt do that ! ), BB/aol/Y/MSN instant messengers, wi-fi browser, opera mini etc etc

oh and PIN to PIN to other BB handsets worldwide, its like texts for free anywhere in the world !

try one in a shop, runs on Java ( the thing most downloadable games/applications run on with most mobiles incase your not sure )
I got mine on Orange and get free calls to 30 countries landlines & UK 01/02/03 landlines & UK Orange mobiles over wi-fi ( now with unlimited landlines on my mobile plan im laughing )


oh and you back up all info to your PC, & like mine ( dropped ) you are your own Service Point, no downtime while away for repair BB save a lot of money allowing you to do that for yourself over a PC, you just run BB desktop & reload the Operating System....now show me a Windows/ Nokia etc etc that allow you to do that ! 20 mins later my mobile was up & running

Cavey

Luffy321 wrote: »

One more thing, considering my brief at the top and the fact that i didnt want the phone option, do you think im making a good choice?

It all kind of depends on what you want to do and what else you carry with you.

The phone aspect allows you to use the internet while you are on the move with little difficulty. This allows you to check mail or get information off the net without the need of finding a hotspot. If you have a laptop with mobile dongle, this might not be of interest, but it might otherwise be worthwhile, especially as most companies forbid you to use your phone as a modem (even if it was as a modem for a PDA).

However, PDAs which are not phones do not suffer from the size constraints that otherwise hamper PDA-Phones. This allows for bigger screens and for them to be generally quicker, thereby making them better entertainment devices.

There is the rare exception to the rule which, instead of moving from phone to entertainment, moves from pda towards phone (such as the iPhone), but these seem to be in the minority.

Luffy321

Well, i carry a phone with me and sometimes my laptop. I will mainly be using my pda at uni, so hotspot shouldnt be a problem (there is always mcdonald's lol). Also im getting broadband dongle for my laptop.

Bearing all this in mind, should i buy for the ipaq 214 considering wifi/internet hotspot wont be a problem or should i still be looking at HTC diamond and iphone (but with iphone its contract only and hackin it is a hassle).