I was at the meeting today in the virtual sense (currently in New Orleans at a conference) in order to maintain my 100% ALUG meeting attendance. Ashley Dr. Ashley T. Howes PhD Internet Developer Email: ashley@blueskyresearch.net Web: http://www.ashleyhowes.com "When all the animals of this world are gone, man will die of loneliness"

The Handsprings will run the same applications as the Palm machines (as will the new Sony handhelds and the TRGPro) as they all run PalmOS. The main downside to the Handsprings is that they have no flash memory, so you cannot upgrade the operating system on them; you are stuck with whatever it ships with. That may well be relevant when you come to install apps that require the latest OS release. The usefulness of the expansion slot on the Handspring is also somewhat limited given that there aren't too many modules for it, and the modules that are out are a bit overpriced. (disclaimer: I think you can apply some RAM-based patches to the OS or use the expansion slot to override the internal ROM, but you see my point). The backlight is also much weaker than the Palm series machines, if that's important to you. There are range of models in the Palm III series. The IIIe also has no flash memory, so that may be worth avoiding also. You can compare the features of the III series on Palm's website: http://www.palm.com/products/iiiseries.html The Palm V (2Mb) and Vx (8Mb) are very nice (I have a V) but somewhat more expensive; you pay quite a bit extra for the cool form factor. Another thing to bear in mind is that the IIIc (the new colour version) and the V/Vx are rechargeable and, last time I checked, the US models had chargers that only ran on 110v (the European chargers seem to be multi-voltage.. at least, mine is). If you're wondering how much memory you might want in your Palm then be assured that 2Mb goes a long way with the efficient Palm applications, but obviously more is always better; especially if you want to install a book or two to read on the plane. The ultimate Palm-compatible device for lots of storage is the TRGPro; aside from having 8Mb of RAM is has a compact-flash slot, so you could potentially put a 200Mb+ solid-state CF card in there, or even an 340Mb IBM microdrive ;-) A bit pricey, but interesting. (http://www.trgpro.com/) Hot-syncing with Linux works very well; there are a variety of gui and non-gui apps. I have mine hot-syncing over infrared as well with my laptop which is handy when the cradle isn't available. Finally, as if there weren't enough models already, Palm are due to bring out a new even cheaper model (the M100), but it's going to have a 25% smaller screen so I've somewhat dismissed that already. Useful starting-point websites: http://www.palmstation.com/ (has stories about the new M100 and Sony models) http://www.palmgear.com/ (*lots* of Palm software) Hope that helps rather than confuses ;-) Gareth Ps. /me looks up and apologises for rambling "Dr. Ashley T. Howes PhD" wrote:

While I'm over here in the states I thought I would buy a new personal organiser. I currently have a Psion 3a which is nearly broken (or at least broken enough to buy a new machine :) ) and I'm looking at either a Palm machine or one of the cheaper Handspring Palm compactable machines. Does anyone on the list know if the Handsping machines perform the same operations as the Palms? What about all the cool extra programs you can install onto the Palm, like miniGL, etc? Any specific disadvantages in buying the Handspring over the Palm?

Ashley

Dr. Ashley T. Howes PhD Internet Developer Email: ashley@blueskyresearch.net Web: http://www.ashleyhowes.com

"When all the animals of this world are gone, man will die of loneliness"

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