Tech Dilemma....
Gah. Dad's in Tokyo, I need a new/replacement PDA/Mobile computing device thing, and I'm deeply conflicted.
See, however I look at it, smartphones have screens that are too dinky/useless for what I want to use it for (med reference, largely, and the odd spot of video watching and the like). And looking at straight up PDAs, what's clear is that the last real new ones are about a year old, at least. And that the Palm TX still hits a sweet spot: cheap, big screen, speed's fine. But...Palm's quit developing Palm OS, software offerings are still good now, but not so hot for the future; there's simply far, far more out there for windows mobile devices in terms of connectivity/multimedia software. Other major pain in the butt: grafitti/stylus text input is complete, utter, unadulterated shitcakes. Bad, bad slowness. But all the alternative little doodads that run windows and have tiny qwerty boards have, well, tiny keyboards and even tinier screens.
On the flipside, there are those shiny, shiny tempting UMPC type things, particularly the Fujitsu Lifebook U series units. Which is awfully, awfully shiny, I can afford it (getting plenty of work, and I'm not buying any more guitar wood for a while), but: it's a bit bulky for carrying around (it's small, but 600g/1lb isn't nothing), although it just about works for a white doctor jacket thing, big plus is that it runs a proper/full OS and has a keyboard, major problem...battery life is, apparently, really quite ass. Unless you get the bigger fancier one. Which adds a bunch of weight, I'll wager. Upside: I can actually use it as a mobile office doodad, and in fact, probably simply declare it as a business expense and write it off; it's a computer, after all, and I translate for monetary gain and all that.
But still, it's so shiny and geeky! And dad's in Tokyo! And I'm entirely ignoring the fact you can buy about 5 TXs for the price of one of them UMPC things!
ARGH.
See, however I look at it, smartphones have screens that are too dinky/useless for what I want to use it for (med reference, largely, and the odd spot of video watching and the like). And looking at straight up PDAs, what's clear is that the last real new ones are about a year old, at least. And that the Palm TX still hits a sweet spot: cheap, big screen, speed's fine. But...Palm's quit developing Palm OS, software offerings are still good now, but not so hot for the future; there's simply far, far more out there for windows mobile devices in terms of connectivity/multimedia software. Other major pain in the butt: grafitti/stylus text input is complete, utter, unadulterated shitcakes. Bad, bad slowness. But all the alternative little doodads that run windows and have tiny qwerty boards have, well, tiny keyboards and even tinier screens.
On the flipside, there are those shiny, shiny tempting UMPC type things, particularly the Fujitsu Lifebook U series units. Which is awfully, awfully shiny, I can afford it (getting plenty of work, and I'm not buying any more guitar wood for a while), but: it's a bit bulky for carrying around (it's small, but 600g/1lb isn't nothing), although it just about works for a white doctor jacket thing, big plus is that it runs a proper/full OS and has a keyboard, major problem...battery life is, apparently, really quite ass. Unless you get the bigger fancier one. Which adds a bunch of weight, I'll wager. Upside: I can actually use it as a mobile office doodad, and in fact, probably simply declare it as a business expense and write it off; it's a computer, after all, and I translate for monetary gain and all that.
But still, it's so shiny and geeky! And dad's in Tokyo! And I'm entirely ignoring the fact you can buy about 5 TXs for the price of one of them UMPC things!
ARGH.