Palm Pilot

[Go Guns]

I have a Treo 650 I really like. Get's my email for me. Holds all my contacts and I've got a bunch of documents I use like simple excel sheets for weight and balance.

[2milefinal]

I have a ZIRE 21 and I use it all the time. Its small enough to fit in my shirt pocket and I only paid 90$ for it (ebay). I have friend that got one for 30$ on ebay.
Nothing fancy about it, no colour, no blutooth or wifi.
Programs I use -all the time
- Fly Nav Pro, a simple flight planning program. 20$
-Address/phone book
-NOTE PAD
-Calender
-chess
Spend the big bucks and drop it or you fall in the water, its going to hurt more then just your bank account.

[w squared]

You'll have to ask some of them. Do you even know what a Luddite is? Google it, perhaps (there's 2 syllables in Google).

My experience with Palm Pilots has been uniformly bad. They're great for the office worker who has a desktop that he is in front of all day, and a place to put the thing in a cradle, but for pilots that are gone for days on end and don't normally have a private office, they will cause you nothing but grief. I really don't care if you wish to waste your money, Staples has the TX for $369 - they might be useful for those of you who can't write, but if all you want it for is solitaire and fiddling, get a Game Boy.

Something else, if you get one buy a bunch of stylii because you will drop yours in the cockpit and its very hard to make the sucker work with a thumbnail. Not to mention trying to input anything while the air is rough.

Yes, I know exactly what a Luddite is. Followers of Ned Ludd, smashing of machines, all that wonderful industrial revolution partytime stuff.

My comment was simply a response to the fact that your attack on palm-type devices was so broad and generalized that it absolutely neglected the fact that every tool (regardless of it's technology level) needs to be used correctly. If you use it incorrectly or abuse it, it will fail you. This even applies to buck knives.

[TTJJ]

In the aviation department I work for we all use Palms.
I have a Tungsten E with a 512mb expansion card in a hard metal case. I have never lost a stylus.

We fly to all over the world and would be lost without the things. Handlers, JeppView info (I sort of cracked that), banking stuff, schedules in Excel, emails, Word docs, PDF files...you name it.

I personally bought a Scrabble game (real cool), Pocket Quicken (so-so) and LogbookPro (needs work in the palm version).

I have written spreadsheets for it for long range nav, (NA-Europe etc) W&B sheets, and BFL for our aircraft.
I do my expense accounting on it (Excel)
I keep track of my Licences and Medicals (Excel, 4 ATPs a real pain to remember them all)
I keep track when the database for the aircraft will ship and expire as well as when JeppView expires (Calendar)
I have read The Da Vince Code on it
I have watched movies on it.
Most importantly, I can carry tons of photos of my family in it.

It is somewhat dated technology as the new ones have phones included, but you would need a crowbar to get the thing away from me.

My wife told me that in her next life she wants to come back as my palm so that I will pay more attention to her!

We use it as an extension of our laptops.

A game boy would probably be more fun, but doesn't do half the stuff.

[Out of Control]

Treo 700p it rocks

[. ._]

edited

[mbflyer]

I had a Handspring Visor when it first came out. Haven't used it in years. My last job, there was some sort of problem with the way the cradle and USB port worked, so everytime I powered up my desktop I had to reinstall the software. Worked pretty good when I had it, but man that's old tech ( B&W screen)

I now have a blackerry, works well for e-mail, phone is okay, but seems to draw battery power right quick. It's work supplied, but if I was buying one know I would probably go with the palm as opposed to a blackberry.

[Sideshow]

My 2 cents
Zire 72 and 1gb SD card
I like the camera/mp3/nintendo emulator/adobe/word docs + regular PDA stuff.
Happy with it, but the wifi SIDO is weak and buggy. Super cool when wifi does work though.

I like the treos but don't like the monthly fees so I never got one.

[Hotel Tango]

I kinda like the Pocket PCs better. If you use windows and MS Office, there is a more seemless integration of the two. No need to convert your word documents into a file that your Palm can read because the Pocket PC comes with Microsoft Word, Excel, Access etc.

Also (with the exception of the higher end palms) the Pocket PCs make use of the whole screen instead of just the top with the area to write in on the bottom. This is great for reading documents, surfing web pages or watching videos.

Don't like MS all the time but it just works too darn nice for me to not consider.

Also lots of free aviation related software on the net if you look for it.

[Brewguy]

Any of the Palm 500 series would be fine... if you already own one. I'd be wary of buying one used, as rechargable batteries on these can often be an issue if the previous owner left it sitting on the base/charger a lot.
I have a Palm 515 (bought used), which is sitting in a drawer until I can get a new battery kit for it. When it was working, it was great.

If buying new - any of the current offerings will work fine. The Zire series are marketed more for youth / trendy types (although I agree with whoever said they were a bit 'girly looking'). The Tungsten series are intended to be more for the business user.

I currently have a Tungsten T - which I use for every day business stuff, while I still use an older m130 that I keep loaded with any flying-related apps. Not sure what Palm applications are freely available for commercial flying - but I've found lots of really good ones for gliding.

[cloudcounter]

Have had a handspring visor for years with back up springboard module but then dropped it on a hospital floor in the xray room in '05- dead.
Found it really usefull in my service business -about 3k customer lists so retired and bought replacement - used one on ebay for 30 bucks.
Works fine but cant get a reliable synch..
frustrating
tons of programs out there for the plam os -like tons and no end- someone is into it whatever you think of- loved it but not on the road like I used to be so my desktop gets more attention now
My son has threatened to give me a more recent colour model so we shall see this month