Hmmmm. That sounds vaguely … disturbing.
What I mean is, I’ve been using a Palm Vx for the last year or so. And, much to my surprise, it’s become a regular accessory. When I walk out of the house, I make sure I have my wallet, my keys, my watch, my cell phone, and my Palm … and sometimes I forget my watch. I can keep my schedule, I can find my friends’ phone numbers, I can scribble notes … and always have it with me!
That having been said, my Palm is stand-alone. No modem or anything. And the stylus interface has some plusses for navigation, but sucks for text input (even though I use Graffiti faster than most folks I know).
A few weeks back, one of my peers in IT showed up at a meeting with one of the iPAQ Blackberry units — basically Compaq repackaging the RIM 957. It had all the basic PDA functions, it had ties into our company e-mail system through wireless functions (which worked better than my cell phone where we were eating), and it had a little keyboard (thumbs) interface.
And then another person in the company got sent one from our infrastructure group.
So I broadly hinted, “Oh, by the way, if you’re just giving them away …” And they’re going to send me one.
Now, the fact is, alpha geek that I am, no way I can actually carry two PDAs. So if I use the Blackberry, I won’t be using the Palm. But …
Upgrade angst. The Palm has a much broader software base. It’s worked well for me. I have all my PC synchronization set up, and all my utility enhancements set up. But the Blackberry has a keyboard interface, which may mean I can use it even more effectively. And it’s wireless. And the (rechargable) battery life is supposedly fantastic. I can get my office e-mail. But I have questions (from reviews I’ve since read) about how practical the e-mail thing will be (do I have to leave my desktop booted up? really?). And I’m not sure that the functionality of the utilities will be as good. And my Palm syncs with my preferred address book (PSA Cards), wherease the Blackberry will just work with my Outlook, which doesn’t help me any with e-mailing folks from the office …
*sigh*
Well, we’ll see. I’ll let you know how it’s going.