Older PalmOS PDA recommendations

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DrBunsen's picture
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Older PalmOS PDA recommendations

Hi all,

I'm looking for recommendations and/or warnings about older Palm PDAs. They need to have a serial connection (at least as an option) and be running at least PalmOS 3.1. I'm looking for the cheapest reliable one possible - as an example I've been looking at the Palm IIIxe which sells about $AU60 ($US45). Apart from general PDA stuff I want to run the Minimusic.com MIDI control software - hence the need for a serial port. Don't need colour, don't need fancy stuff, and don't have the money to go much outside my price range.

DrBunsen's picture
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Or Handspring Treo/Visor

I might be tempted to spend a little more on an older Handpring Visor or Treo - if they can use a serial cable. I need to upgrade my mobile phone soon.

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If you just want a Palm Phone

If you just want a Palm Phone, and don't care about size, I would imagine you could find Qualcomm's first-gen Palm/Phone. It was really big. My favorite PDA was probably the IIIe, but all I needed was a To-Do List.

Here are some ideas:
http://www.usedhandhelds.com/store/asp/prodtype.asp?prodtype=41&recorprod=7&ph=&keywords=&recor=1&SearchFor=&PT_ID=1

jt
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Visor + Serial Dock + EyeModule2 =

VERY COOL!
The USB Dock works right nicely too, BTW.

jt Wink

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M125 - 8MB

I've got an M125 that's been a good balance of capability vs. price.

I had a Palm Personal before that, upgraded with the Palm III upgrade, but found it a little underpowered. There was a lot of software it wouldn't run, due to having only OS 3.1, and the 2MB memory limit got close quickly.

On the flipside, I had an ipaq for a while, but found I wasn't taking it with my anywhere because it was so expensive and fragile.

So...I picked up a used M125, with 8MB and OS 4.0.1, and it seems a nice balance. I keep it in my pocket and don't worry about it getting crunched, it's got a ton of memory for a Palm, and the OS is modern enough to handle everything except more demanding emulators and graphic intensive games. I get several weeks of use out of two AAA nimhs.

It's also one of the lowest priced Palms to have an SD Card slot.

Caveats:
- The M125 (and others in that series) need a free software patch to prevent 'mad digitizer syndrome.'
- no matter what you get, use screen protectors on the digitizer.

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hmm

I've never had a good experience with a Palm product. Palm Pilot Pro: reset it self every hour, cause a lot of data loss. Didn't live long. Tungsten E number 1: would also reset itself without warning, froze when more than 800kb of text was entered(in any number of programs), included cover seriously scratched screen due to stitching fault. Tungsten E number 2: HUGE portion of the digitizer didn't work. At all. Whatsoever. No scrolling, no number input through Graffiti 2. No drawing on the right side. No selecting right-hand programs. And its screen cover scratched it up a lot too. Frankly I'll never touch another Palm in my life. >:(

Dog
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Lovin It

Dog love's his visors, all three of them. Battery visor's are cool cause they'll never die, the li-lon visor's can be finicky. The Prism (16bit color) has a good amount of wow factor runs Palm OS 3.5 but suckles battery. The Pro (16mb onboard) doesn't have the impressiveness of the Prism but it lets me use more GPS maps (can do the whole trip instead of just the destination) and since it's B&W it'll go 10hrs of GPS before dieing (only got about 4 on the prism). My mint condition Visor (2mb usb release) that I found at the salvation army for $10 runs off AAA's, not a problem if you have a charged set at hand since you can swap them out quick to retain memory. It's very reliable, kinda pokey but it worked great.

The other great thing about Handspring Visor's is that the springboard modules are plentifull and more robust than the SDIO and CF crap you see in newer pda's.

Dog
i'm parting the prism, poor thing doesn't turn on anymore. Oh and I have a serial dock if you have to use serial, USB is faster n easier.

DrBunsen's picture
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Handspring Cellular modules

How much do the Springboard cellular phone addons go for? Are they GSM?

Dog
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Snag one

currently you can probably snag one for about $20(buy it now) on ebay, probably looking more towards $30 with shipping. There are two different versions, SprintPCS and GSM. You can almost always tell the sprint ones due to the logo and the use of "link" such as digitallink or weblink. Aside from the GSM and CDMA difference the sprint phone(CDMA) has different software (in how it works with other programs and sound processing) and the module itself is a tad larger.

Keep an eye out for the kensington keypad, lets you plug the springboard module into a keypad so that you can still use it as your phone even when you have somthing else(GPS, OBDII, Cam) in your visor.

Oooh oooh! and you can piggyback 8mb memory chips on the Prism to up it's built in memory to 16mb! Requires some mad soldering skills (since you have to solder memory chip pins and a wire to the processor) but there's information to be found online Smile

Dog
I likey the visor, get the Visor Edge if you want somthing thin!!!!

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