Great substitute for my laptop

Author's Rating:

Pros: Wireless, easy text entry, good graphics.

Cons: Need more memory! Also Bluetooth unfriendly.

The Bottom Line: 
Helps lead a more organised life and gets one away from the desktop PC.

Author's Review
I bought 2 of these almost a year ago, one for myself and one for my wife. Our uses are very different, whereas I use mine for business (and Sudoku), she uses hers for audio, video and playing scrabble. We have both grown very attached to our PDAs.

Although many people criticise the text entry system of a PDA, having upgraded to the Calligrapher handwriting program, I find it easy to enter text on my PDA using Pocket Word, and sometimes not only jot notes but write reports while I am waiting in the car or sitting in a restaurant – something that is impossible to do with my laptop. I use Pocket Outlook everyday for appointments, tasks and emails, which I sync with my desktop PC. I also use Pocket Money to keep track of my accounts.

Best of all is the wireless function, which effortlessly picks up nearby wireless Internet signals. Some airports and cities offer free wireless and it is great to sit with a cup of tea while surfing. Alternatively, I can access my email conveniently anywhere in my house, without waiting for my laptop to boot up.

I haven’t had problems with frequent crashes, though I do like to reboot the PDA every now and then, which isn’t difficult.

My gripes are that the Bluetooth could have been better implemented (it works fine, but is not very friendly) and I wish it had more system memory (it has 64Mb, which is more than some PDAs).

Nevertheless, I love my 2415, carry it with me everywhere (which I can’t do with my laptop) and am thinking of expanding my uses to an encyclopaedia and maybe a satellite navigator card.