Wanted to Love It, But Can't

Author's Rating:

Pros: Color, wireless, Bluetooth, Word & Excel built in, MP3 player, SD & CompactFlash expansion slots

Cons: MICROSOFT!!! - dumps info without warning, requires constant charging, too much crap, few add-ons available

The Bottom Line: 
Fine if you need only a superficial handheld. Pass if you want something truly customizable and useful. Sorry to any business execs who use PDAs for more than portable calendars!

Author's Review
I've had three Handspring PDA's in the past five years (upgraded once, then dropped it and destroyed the screen). In spite of them being the absolute bare minimum, I miss them. I bought this iPaq after careful consideration. I wanted to go to color, I liked the wireless option, and I didn't want to support Palm, now that Handspring no longer existed. This looked like a solid choice.

I should have remembered that I hate Microsoft even more than I was annoyed with Palm. This has all of the usual Microsoft pitfalls. They try to cram in too much stuff and it becomes buggy and difficult to navigate. On the Palm based PDAs I had, I could easily locate any program, any file, in a few seconds. With this I have to navigate through endless folders. I don't care about the inner workings - I just want to find my stuff. And despite the apparently huge storage capabilities, 50 - 75% of it is taken up by the operating system and all the other pre-loaded garbage. The system is as unstable as any new Microsoft product, which means it resets itself several times a week, and I have to perform a hard reset at least twice a month.

Several Microsoft products are included - Windows Media Player (okay, I like this), Word and Excel (seldom used), and the eBook reader. I read a lot of books on my PDA, but this reader limits your choices. I've read only one book through it. It's pretty, sure, but who cares if you can only find seven free downloads, and six are religious or medical texts? I'm cheap. I want free books. As an added benefit, I've read a lot of Jane Austin and P.G. Wodehouse because the old books are available free. I downloaded my old standby iSilo reader - the free application. I've loaded a dozen books to the PocketPC, but four have converted to meaningless symbols without warning halfway through reading. My cousin wrote a book and I loaded that Word document onto this handheld. In the middle of reading, it literally DISAPPEARED. The file no longer existed.

The security appears to be all that you could want - you have the option of setting a four digit code or an alphanumeric password (I believe there are also more complicated security settings). Unfortunately, the letter recognition doesn't always work, so you have to re-enter the password several times to get through. I gave up after a few weeks and switched to the four digit code, which is entered by tapping the letters on a "keypad". The other major downfall to the security is the lack of individual security options. On my PDA, I could mark an item as private - any item, from a note to an appointment to a book - and then set it so the private items were not visible or were only visible as a shaded box. When you tapped on them, you entered a password (which nearly always went through on the first try). If you keep this handheld plugged in beside you at the desk (which you really have to do at the rate it goes through the battery), once you enter your password, it keeps everything open. The password does not time out. It only requires a second password entry if the handheld turns off. This means everything is visible to the casual passerby, including, for example, a note in the calendar that my period started.

The built in calendar does not have a task option. You have to enter tasks in their own application, and you are not allowed to set a time for the task - only a day. If you set the task as a calendar item, you'll get the reminder when you want it, but you can't check it off, and if you don't complete it that day, it doesn't carry forward. Also, the reminders that pop up can be snoozed, but only for Microsoft's pre-set times - 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 8 hours, 1 day, or 1 week. You wouldn't think so, but it's really a pain. If I have a personal task, it pops up at the beginning of the day. I want to snooze the reminder to near the end of my workday, so I have to snooze it for 2 hours, then again in 2 hours for another 2 hours, then again for 2 hours, then again for 1 hour, then 30 minutes. It's incredibly annoying to be interrupted so many times.

The greatest thing about the PDAs was the variety of downloadable applications. There are hundreds of thousands of applications, many of them free. I had dozens of puzzle games, databases, readers, books - there was a fantastic little app that tracked my gas mileage, and another that showed me movie times at my local theater. It was wonderful. On this handheld, the add-ons are limited. Maybe this is more difficult to write for - it wouldn't surprise me. The relatively few add-ons that are available are seldom freeware, and are even more seldom useful to the average user.

I realize that this review has turned into a comparison between operating systems. Having experienced both, I really felt it was important to let people know what to expect. If you are a beginning handheld user, I strongly recommend starting with a Palm-based system. If you have a Palm (and like it) and are looking to upgrade, stay within that operating system. If you really like all the bells and whistles that Microsoft is known for, go ahead and get something like this. Just remember, you will also get all of the limitations and bugs that Microsoft is also known for.