Help/advice with PDA purchase on ebay please

econo_2

Hi all,

A family member wants a PDA for booking appointments/schedules/reminders, those types of things. She knows nothing about them and it's something I've never bothered with either so would appreciate some guidance!

I have looked on Ebay and see a lot of very cheap refurbished models from Dell, Hp and others and I see Blackberry too and know nothing about the differences!. All look fine etc but I don't know how new these things are either! Some have release dates of 2003 which although they seem modern enough appears dated to me.

An example is the HP IPAQ H4350. They appear to go for around 50 pounds, some brands like Dell are even cheaper. Thing is how old are these models? Are PDA's a product which drops very fast as soon as a new model is released or should I buy something newer?

Any help would be appreciated!

Red_Rose_Exile

No, PDAs have been replaced by smartphones and as such are redundant, goodness knows why. No one could me a technophobe, but I prefer my phone to phone and my HP 1910 to do everything else. Mine acts as my MP3 player, organiser, SAT NAV, picture viewer and data storage.

You should be looking for one that runs at least Pocket PC 2003, and has a 400Mhz or greater Processor. Hopefully it will have 64Mb of RAM and at least 64B of ROM space. Hopefully it will have built in WIFI and will be bluetooth enabled and have at least 1 and hopefully 2 expansion slots.

The HP 1910 has all the above.

The biggest problem most of them had and still have is a poor battery performance.

It might help if we knew what the budget was

U've_been_framed

How much money do you want to spend? PDAs are a dying breed because modern mobile phones such as the Blackberry and the Iphone have the same functions as well as the ability to phone, take pictures etc.
There are 2 basic types of the older PDAs: those that use the Palm operating system, and those that use the windows mobile system. The Palm OS is simpler and faster than the windows mobile system, but the latter may be more familiar to a pc user. Both will synchronise with a pc very easily.
I cannot give more specific information as I am not familiar with all the different models.

econo_2

Red_Rose_Exile wrote: »

No, PDAs have been replaced by smartphones and as such are redundant, goodness knows why. No one could me a technophobe, but I prefer my phone to phone and my HP 1910 to do everything else. Mine acts as my MP3 player, organiser, SAT NAV, picture viewer and data storage.

You should be looking for one that runs at least Pocket PC 2003, and has a 400Mhz or greater Processor. Hopefully it will have 64Mb of RAM and at least 64B of ROM space. Hopefully it will have built in WIFI and will be bluetooth enabled and have at least 1 and hopefully 2 expansion slots.

The HP 1910 has all the above.



The biggest problem most of them had and still have is a poor battery performance.

It might help if we knew what the budget was

Thanks both of you for the replies. Rose-your point about keeping the two things separate echoes exactly how she feels-doesn't want to use her phone for talking and appointments together. Having a new phone and using as a work horse tends to make it tired rather quick.

Also, when you say smart phone, you basically mean the new touch screen ipod come Samsung Omnia type things I take it? A little smaller and more fragile but other than that forgive me but I can't see the difference in facilities unless your Barrack Obama to that of a PDA!

The model that appears good enough to do the job is an Hp Ipaq 4350 or would you say there is better for 40-50 quid as it is a little low spec?

With what you both have said I really can't see any point paying more but if wrong put me right!

GaryS

If it any help, I use a HP RX3715 model PDA that was a present a couple of years ago now.
It has all of the following features:

Windows Mobile 2003
WiFi
Bluetooth
1.2 megapixel camera
Expandable storage using SD cards

It also come with Pocket word, Excel and Outlook and syncronises with my PC running Office 2007.

I also use it to run Tomtom via and exterbal bluetooth GPS receiver.

I have no problems with it at all.