[BUGA] Re: Mobile phone/PDA recommendations?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Friday,  9 December 2005 at 12:47:53 +1030, Andrew Reid wrote:
> On 09/12/2005, at 12:09 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>
>> I've done a bit of looking around, and to my immense disappointment I
>> discover that most of the more interesting devices are
>> Microsoft-based.
>
> To be honest though, Greg, when I had to go through the same process,
> I reckoned the Microsoft-based PDAs were a better unit, all things
> considered. I mean, if you get yourself past the fact that it's from
> the Dark Side, they're pretty tolerable.

Yes, that's what worries me :-)  It's distaste, but I'll probably end
up with a Microsoft-based machine.

> That said, every now-and-then, my HP iPAQ hx4700 does have a shitfit
> which results in me pulling the battery and starting it up again.
> Maybe once every couple of months, I'd say. Still, we're living in a
> world where I regularly have to "reboot" my phone, so I suppose in
> that light, it's not too bad.

Right.  Computers need rebooting from time to time, don't they?
That's the Microsoft conditioning.  Years ago my VCR worked all the
time between power failures.  Now computer based things fall over
every month or so.  What progress!

> I found the screens on most of the PDAs out there pretty average
> when I was looking, but this one had a nice, large 640x480 LCD
> screen, which was also a selling point for me.

Yes, that would do it for me too.  But I have laptops and things.
This is really a phone replacement for me; if it can do other things
too, good.

>> - Camera, I suppose.  The HP has a 1.3 megapixel camera, which is good
>>  by comparison with others, but marginal by comparison with real
>>  cameras.
>
> See, again, I found the cameras in most PDAs to be more of a wank
> than they're worth, when you consider the image quality. What can you
> really do with images of that quality?

1.3 megapixels is good for a lot of stuff.  But as I said, "I
suppose".  You could send them via GPRS, for example.  Good when
you're talking to somebody and need to show him something *now*.

>> Can anybody suggest useful alternatives to the HP?
>
> I can't be of much assistance, I'm sorry.  Greg, what's the main
> thing that you're not liking about the HP you've been looking at?

About the only thing I don't like is the absence of 802.11b.  Well,
and the Microsoft thing, of course.

> There seem to be open source tools for syncing them on Linux at
> least.

Ah, this directly contradicts what Daniel O'Connor says.  It would be
nice to know whether there are or not.

> Your corporate collaboration system is probably something
> proprietary anywhay, isn't it?

Not sure what you mean here.  Anyway, MySQL is an open source company,
and we use very little proprietary software.

Greg
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