Your PDA history... what have you owned?

[zerowind]

I was just looking back at old receipts and after recovering from my $$$-shock induced seizure ... I went through the list of PDAs I've owned at one time or another... Here's the list:

Velo-1 -the *first* WinCE PDA "bestseller"... It had very cool styling and the first of the CE devices to offer voice record (now a standard among PPCs)... ... and unlike many others HPCs at the time, it had a whopping 4 megs of memory. *whew* Two expansion slots *and* a built-in softmodem.. (wow this is actually starting to sound like a decent unit even now) 36mhz mips chip tho...Sadly like the current bestseller of the day (ipaq) it was plagued with manufacturing/quality control problems... Charger/battery problems and the dreaded "hinge" problem... ahh the memories...

Velo-500 - Philips Five hundredth revision of the Velo... Actually just the second model... supposedly a stronger hinge (If I didn't accidently step on the screen and smash it, I guess I'd know if the hinge would have lasted longer ) Wider screen... more memory (16 megs!) Pretty decent unit... everything the V1 was but with more everything... nothing too exciting...

Nino... Looks nice (Philips had the styling thing down pat).. a bit large and plagued with quality problems... 8 megs, 75mhz mips chip... and the dreaded EKG digitizer problem... tsk... Philips, at least Compaq replaces the units, you guys just kept saying "ahh we're working on a software patch"... which never came out.. no wonder you're not still around...

Casio E-10... bought this after the Nino fiasco... *great* sharp, *bright* screen... (Casio's have consistently had a tradition of having great screens)... thing is the battery life sucked... (worse than the ipaq).. and only 4 megs (Casio seems to like making units with not enough memory in them (EM-500 anyone?)... 49mhz mips... no real quality control problems (this is also a tradition of theirs)

Casio E-100... Ahh now we're getting someowhere.. this was the precursor to the ipaq... everybody wanted this unit.. 65k Hast screen.. (gorgeous)... first unit to play full color Videos and music!... looks just like today's E-125 except for the color scheme.. Palm owners like to call it a "brick"... ah yes but a very funcitonal brick indeed. 131mhz mips baby... 16 megs, headphone jack... A great unit...eventually smashed it mountain bike riding... (I have a scanned picture around if anyone wants it)...

Casio E-105... Just like the 100 (which lived a very short life) but with 32 megs of memory... had a tendancy to pause... for short (but long enough to me!) periods of time... strange.. I wasn't the only one that noticed the slowdown... even the 'patch' didn't really work to relieve this problem... eventually returned it for a 100 again (which had no pausing problems strangley enough)

HP Jornada 548... waited for the 32 meg model before picking up one of these... 16bit 65k color screen it was... Oh wait, that's what HP *said* it was... many of us here claimed otherwise... (and there were those who said we didn't know what we were talking about)... then HP fessed up... it could only display 4096 colors... ahh the truth comes out.. That along with a funky digitizer problem sent this one back to HP.. sorry. Nice metal case though

Compaq Ipaq 3650.. I preordered and got one of the first units... with 32 megs of ROM.. (which does nothing for me)... dust... horrendous, terrible battery life... dust.... popping.... can't press more than one button at a time... non-existant battery life... digitizer problem... This was like all my previous units rolled into one... (Nino digitizer problem, Velo manufacturing problems, E-10 battery life)... hmm I still have this, I upgraded it to 64 megs just use it to test the backups for my 3670 (something I do now since the last backup I tried to restore from wouldn't...)

EM-500.... I resisted getting this but then walked into a store and saw the screen was even *better* than the E-10X series! Wow, a slick unit... biggest problem... only 16 megs (read my previous comment about Casio being stingy with memory) and a MMC card instead of a standard CF... I'd still be using this if it were ARM based (especially since they found a way to upgrade to 32 megs of RAM)... too many of my Japanese based programs are ARM only so this sadly leaves the EM-500 sitting around charging for the occasionally game or so...

My current is a 3670... finally allows me to carry around an ipaq with no sleeve... the only problems from the 3650 that remain are the button problems, dust problem and the horrendous... terrible... three-hours-idle-on-low-backlight-before-low-battery-warning battery life... I used my carepaq and got one that now lasts about 2 hours idle, low backlight before it starts too die... feh...

Well that's it... almost picked up a palm when the new Clies came out but realized I would be doing it just for the looks ... I'm a shallow guy but not *that* shallow...

Whew... that's all of them -Just don't ask me to list what game consoles I own

(Hey Pixelator, you should have some stories you got me beat by quite a few units...) Also looking forward to hearing from anyone who's owned any message pads... I always wanted one of those...

[porovaara]

My list is far more small and much less detailed.

PSION 3a + memory cards... this was still the most functional PDA I have ever used. It didn't have many bells or whistles but I could whip things together in OPL pretty quickly to do whatever I wanted. For a year or so after I stopped using it, it became my alarm clock.

NINO. The brick as I like to think of it. I never really used it very much despite getting it for an incredible price. The digitizer sucked, and the colour was so washed out. I eventually ended up taking it apart and painting it bright orange and white. It is my current alarm clock.

Palm 3. Used it for about 4 days. Couldn't stand graphitti or the display. If I wanted something so basic I would just use paper... which is what I did for a while.

iPaq. Mine has now developed the dust problem so many complain about but other than that nary a problem. I only have to charge it once a day and use it lightly most days. Sometime there is heavy use when I go to a lot of meetings. I keep lots of documents/contacts synced from my work/home machines with it. Quite handy but I don't use it as much as I would like. Using WLAN on it is neat to me but not very useful.

Overall my iPaq is my favorite just because of all the neat stuff it does but the Psion was by far the most usefull. I would probably still be using it if it hand't met a horrible fate at the hands of an xgf.

[imported_dreampages]

Compaq C140
Compaq 2010C
Uniden PC100A
Compaq iPAQ H3650 (upgraded to 64MB)

[Synth]

Originally posted by porovaara
My list is far more small and much less detailed.

Overall my iPaq is my favorite just because of all the neat stuff it does but the Psion was by far the most usefull. I would probably still be using it if it hand't met a horrible fate at the hands of an xgf.

I would agree that the Psion handhelds are more useful. If only they made a colour version of the 3 or 5 instead of producing the huge 7.

What's an xgf

[imported_MitzEclipse]

Here's my list: in chronological order

Palm Pilot 1000
Palm Pilot Professional
Casio Cassiopeia A-11
NEC MobilePro 450
Palm Pilot III
Palm Pilot IIIxe
Palm Pilot m100
Palm Pilot IIIc
Casio E-105
Handspring Visor Solo
Handspring Visor Deluxe
IPAQ 3135
IPAQ 3630

Out of all of those, I used the MobilePro and the VDX as my day to day PDA. Now I have just converted to the IPAQ and am using the 3630 as my day to day PDA.

All of those have been sold at one point or another, and the only PDA I have right now is the 3630.

[Firehawk]

In order

Newton -all of them
Sony magiclink
Pilot 1000-Trg memory upgrade
PalmPilot Profesisonal-several TRG memory upgrades
HP Jornada 430se
Ipaq 3630

The above does not include units I have possessed or worked with that I did not directly purchase or own. At which point it would be huge

[acraniotes]

In order...

Sharp DialMaster (the great grandaddy of PDAs...)
Newton MP 130
Palm III
Psion Series 5
Palm V
Palm Vx (PPK and OmniSky)
Casio E-105
Palm IIIc (PPK)
iPAQ 3650 (PPK, CF Expansion Pack, 2 CF Cards, CF Modem)
Palm m505 (PPK)

At present, the m505 is my "workhorse" PDA, due mainly to its small size. That said, I have a helluva lot more fun with my iPAQ.

-Adam

PS - The sad thing is that I still have all of them, except for the IIIc. I think it's time to hit eBay...

[plainsong]

Does a Sharp Organizer count? If not, then scratch that as my first..

HP Jornada 680.. then I got tired of it cold booting no matter that I didn't have turn on when lid opens enabled. HP Finland also refused to support it... though they were happy to sell it. Watched my husband enviously as his Palm worked Flawlessly... then ..

PalmIIIc. He had a IIIx, so it was a bit more stable than my IIIc. It worked ok, until I tested for the faulty rom with Palm's own utility. It became flakey after that.. so envying my husband as he desired the Ipaq..

Ipaq3630. This rocks... until dust, bad digitizer, and 1.5hr battery life forced me to send it back in. Should be back sometime tommorrow though... UPS willing.


****Insert heartfelt plea for decent homework software for PocketPC here****

[imported_MitzEclipse]

What is PPK??

Originally posted by acraniotes
In order...

Sharp DialMaster (the great grandaddy of PDAs...)
Newton MP 130
Palm III
Psion Series 5
Palm V
Palm Vx (PPK and OmniSky)
Casio E-105
Palm IIIc (PPK)
iPAQ 3650 (PPK, CF Expansion Pack, 2 CF Cards, CF Modem)
Palm m505 (PPK)

At present, the m505 is my "workhorse" PDA, due mainly to its small size. That said, I have a helluva lot more fun with my iPAQ.

-Adam

PS - The sad thing is that I still have all of them, except for the IIIc. I think it's time to hit eBay...

[imported_TMAN]

Casio B.O.S.S.
HP 48 SX with PIM and Database software
HP 48 GX with PIM and Database software
HP 200 LX 1MB
HP 200 LX 2MB
Apple Newton 120
Palm Pilot Personal
Philips Velo 1
HP 620 LX
HP 660 LX
HP Jornada 680
Franklin REX
HP Jornada 690
Sharp TriPad
IBM z50
Compaq Aero 2130
Casio E-115
Casio E-125
Handspring Visor Prism
iPAQ 3650
iPAQ 3670

I think I might have a problem.

I bought my sister a PalmPilot Personal, my Mom a Handspring Visor, and my Dad a Palm IIIe.
My wife now uses a Casio E-125.