[plug] PDA's

[Christian]

On Mon, Sep 18, 2000 at 12:55:18PM +0800, Bradley Woodward wrote:
> In the hope of sounding intelligent this time, I have an easier thing to 
> talk about.
> I've decided to indulge in a little retail therapy, and buy a PDA.  The 
> people around here all talk about things that run the latest version of 
> Windows CE, which is exactly what I'm NOT looking for.
> So...  Can somebody please point me in the direction of a PDA that does or 
> can run Linux.

At risk of sounding controversial, why do you want a handheld that runs
Linux?  If it's just for the cool factor/hack value then fair enough.
(For me personally, spending $1000+ for a toy is a little hard to
justify!) But otherwise, Linux on a handheld may not be the best way to
go.  For example, PalmOS is much less resource hungry than Linux.
Therefore it can run on less powerful hardware.  Therefore PalmOS
devices are smaller and faster and cost less.  Secondly, I don't know
about you but I spend most of my time communicating with my Linux
systems via the keyboard.  Even the latest GUIs can't beat the GNU
utilities and bash for speed, flexibility and power.  Most handhelds
either don't come with a keyboard or they come with a small one that is
awkward to use (plus making the device much larger, heavier and more
expensive).  Sure, you can get detachable keyboards (I have one for my
Palm) but they very often defeat the purpose of a handheld.  The fact
is, Linux systems (as are found on the desktop) are not really suitable
for handhelds IMHO.  PDAs like the YOPY that use Linux will probably end
up being highly simplified and handheldified GUIs (to make the system
usable) built on top of a Linux kernel.  Sure you can always probably
strip them away and just use Linux but it'll probably be slow and/or
very, very awkward.  My advice is that, if you want the power of Linux
to be portable, get a small laptop.  Otherwise, if you want a PDA, then
think seriously about a Palm.  You can get the colour Palm IIIc for $700
now or the incredibly sleek Vx (LCD) for $600 or so.  They integrate
nicely with Linux and the support is only going to get better.  They
aren't as powerful or as spectacular as the new PocketPC's (which can
have 32MB of RAM, 16-bit colour and MP3 playback) but they have longer
battery life, run much faster, have more applications available, will
work with Linux and tend to be smaller.  Anyway, I guess it depends a
lot on what you're looking for... but if you're looking at PDAs then my
advice is to look for something small, highly usable, highly flexible,
fast and convenient.  Unfortunately, on a handheld, Linux is probably
none of those things.

Regards,

Christian.