PC Help Request

Originally I posted the criteria I had for buying a PDA for my wife to meet a nursing school requirement. Well, the purchase was made and we ended up going with the Palm T|X. The choice was fairly obvious to me once we showed up at Best Buy and they let us know that they stopped selling Windows Mobile handhelds a while ago. This trend was followed by OfficeMax and Staples. Circuit City doesn’t even sell handhelds at all anymore. Go figure. So, while the technology is moving more towards the cell phone market, I’ll still outline my reasons.

• We use Cingular as our cell phone service provider. While they have some great Smartphones, they don’t work without the SIM card in the phone. That eliminated any Smartphone from the running.
• The T|X has wifi, and it was incredibly easy to set up. The model at OfficeMax was connected to the in-store wireless network and we got a chance to use it. Google Maps on the handheld is absolutely fantastic. Some Windows handhelds have wifi too, but we couldn’t try them out since no-one sells them.
• I opted NOT to get the Palm LifeDrive because of the hard drive. My wife has a tendency to drop things. Dropping hard drives will quickly kill them.
• All of the GPS handhelds were fairly expensive and some didn’t have wifi. Wifi was the second most important factor next to the SD card slot.
• And lastly, since no-one had the Windows Mobile handhelds to try out, I was very reluctant to buy one online only to have her hate it. Dell doesn’t even make their well received Axim anymore.

My wife thought that the Palm OS was easy to use. The handwriting recognition, called graffiti, has come a long way since the early days of Palm OS. My wife prefers the on-screen keyboard, but the option is always there for her to write stuff out. I setup her Gmail account to be accessed by the built-in email program. That was a pretty big deal for her. I also mentioned Google Maps, which is fantastic on the Palm. She can use it like a GPS, just without it telling her where she is.