Your Questions Answered

Answers to reader questions about buying and using PDAs.

Yardena Arar, PC World

Got a question about handheld computing? Write to The PDA Pundit.

I paid a long-overdue visit to my PDA Pundit mailbox the other day and was pleasantly surprised to see a respectable pile of legitimate e-mail (as opposed to spam, of which there was also a generous helping). People have questions about PDAs, and I sometimes have answers.

For the benefit of readers who may have similar queries, here's a selection of excerpts from my out-box. The names of the senders have been omitted to protect the innocent (and to permit some minor rephrasing for clarity and/or brevity).

What Should I Get?

Q. I'm in the market for a PDA that can take heavy use for sales calls. I need a bar-code scanner and fax capability and I don't give a hoot about games. Problem is, most reviews I read are all about gaming, music, and photography. I don't need to be entertained; I need a work solution so I can have more time away from extraneous electronic devices. Where can I find information on good bar-code scanners and the PDAs they work best with?

A. There are bar-code scanner modules for both Palms and Pocket PCs of recent vintage. Socket Communications, for example, makes a Secure Digital card-based scanner module for Windows Mobile 2003-based Pocket PCs or recent Palm Tungstens. Or you can go heavy duty and get one of Symbol's ruggedized Palm or Pocket PC devices with built-in scanner.

In general, if you decide to equip a general-use handheld with a bar-code scanner, I'd pay attention to the processor. You probably want a pretty powerful one, on the order of Intel's X-Scale CPU for mobile devices.

Q. I'm ready to invest in a Palm. I'll mostly be using mine for organization and work but I'd like to have a little fun on the side. I'm looking for all the bells and whistles I can get under $400.

A. If you want a general-use machine that can handle games, I would recommend PalmOne's Tungsten T3--it's powerful, has a nice big screen, and is generally well-equipped to play all sorts of games. However, if you're really into gaming on a handheld, you should at least check out TapWave's Zodiac--a Palm-based handheld gaming system that also has the basic Palm organizer apps.

Q. What a quandary! My Handspring Edge is about 3 years old and I use it every day, to track business, diet, exercise, everything. But I think it may be on its last legs. So I've been trying to find a replacement, with no luck. I don't want color if my battery life is going to be reduced. I don't need it to be a phone or an MP3 player--I have those things. I want memory, reliability and a backlight. Is there anything coming on the horizon to rescue me? The Tungsten E looks good, but I see mixed reviews on its battery life.

A. I fear that the heyday of the long-lived monochrome PDA is gone. Nobody is making new handhelds with black-and-white screens--people are less concerned about battery life, apparently, than about good-looking displays. The only monochrome PDA I've seen lately is the entry-level PalmOne Zire 21, and it has no backlight (a fatal flaw, in my humble opinion).

I too have heard some grumbling about the Tungsten E's battery life; I remember thinking that it seemed to poop out more quickly than I expected. You might be better off getting a Tungsten T2--they're cheap now, and I haven't heard complaints about battery life.

PDA Reliability

Q. My Palm V died after about 2 1/2 years. I purchased a Palm 515 and the hot-sync became very impaired after 1 1/2 years. I purchased a Tungsten E and it was defective on arrival. The PalmOne tech support rep said the company has had many problems with the Tungsten E, and to some degree, with the Tungsten T3. What gives? Are Palm units unreliable? Are Sony units more reliable? Are Pocket PCs more reliable? I need a reliable information organizer in my work as a physician.

A. In our December reliability and service study of PDAs, we actually found that PDAs were generally less likely to be defective on arrival than some of the other devices we looked at. It seems you were rather unlucky with your Tungsten E.

We have no historical data to compare our December survey with--this was the first year we looked at PDAs in our study--so I can't tell you if Palms are going downhill, as your experience suggests. However our survey found that overall, Palm customers were more satisfied than Pocket PC customers.

Q. I'm looking for a PDA that is a GSM phone and also has Wi-Fi enabled (so I can use it as a phone and browser connected to my wireless network at home/office). Is there such a product in the market?

A. No, but I think you will see one sooner rather than later. Texas Instruments last year demonstrated a prototype device with GSM/GPRS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth (using a TI chip), and rumor has it that Hewlett-Packard will be bringing one to market. Of course, you can always get a phone/PDA hybrid and then add Wi-Fi via an SD card.

Q. I just got a Kyocera 7135 phone-Palm hybrid. The unit ships with what I think are three browsers. One is just called "browser," another is Eudora Web, and the third is Kyocera's browser. I open these and boy, they sure don't look like the Internet I know. I get what appear to be nonsensical renderings of real Web pages. So, is there a trick? Are there PDA-friendly Web sites? Or is Web browsing with a Palm just something you hear about but can't do?

A. The newer the device, the more likely it is to have a browser capable of intelligently rendering Web pages meant for much larger screens. PalmOne's Blazer is fairly capable, and is available as a $20 stand-alone app.

That said, let's be real: There's no way the Web is going to look the same on a handheld as it does on a desktop. The best you can hope for is for pages not to look, as you put it, nonsensical.

I plan in a future column to take a closer look at browsers for handhelds. Until next time, happy handholding!