[plug] linux-friendly pda

[Gavin Chester]

On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 07:23 +0900, W.Kenworthy wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-02-12 at 20:35 +0400, Brad Campbell wrote:
> > Fred Janon wrote:
> > > The Treo 600 were known for their hardware issues, Palm worked through
> > > 
> > 
> > I love my 680 thus far.. but like the VC's.. went through loads of 650's and 600's..
> > The worst was when I was on a 3 week trip in the US, my backup phone was only dual-band and would 
> > not work on those networks and my 650 went "yellow screen" 4 days into the trip.. yay..
> > 
> > > The battery will be an issue on all these devices, need to cram more
> > > 
> 
> I cant see anything yet I would replace my 650 for.  Its been ~2yrs now
> and it has become quite reliable.  The software was quite bad earlier
> on, but the latest upgrade is quite stable.
> 

-snip-
> 
> Battery life is at least a week unless I am using bluetooth.  I have two
> natted bluetooth receivers on linux boxes at each end of the house for
> coverage.  Works ok, but not so good for SIP (poor and varying
> bandwidth)  I sync over USB as BT is too slow.  I use plucker and
> scripts to gather weather, news etc (some from mashup pages on my own
> webserver) and have a habit of syncing before leaving for work.
> Convenient.
> 
> The phone part is very good - I get good signal where the rabble wont
> even see a connection - after my previous phones (nokia & panasonic),
> its fantastic.  Major plus!
> 
> BillK

I'm reading some very useful stuff from the likes of Bill and Brad who
have first hand experience.  Thanks.

Now, for me three critical questions remain unanswered or unclear to me:

1/ With my heavily limited budget, which model of Treo is worth
considering - balancing compromised performance against cost?  Checking
on ebay Aust I see that a new treo 750 fetched $735, a new 680s sell for
$700-$800, and new 650s sell for $300-$400 - used ones a bit less at
$200-$300.  I gather from your comments that the 600s are not worth
looking at, so I haven't bothered tracking them;

2/ Is it wise to get such an item from a dealer on ebay or should I
waltz into a phone shop somewhere local to be certain of getting better
warranty service, etc?  Is it too risky to consider buying one used from
Joe Blow (non-dealer) for the sake of saving $100 or so? 

3/ I've asked about other brands that would sync with linux, but no one
has recommended anything (eg., does the blackberry?).  Is this just an
omission in the responses or is the Treo the only candidate to work with
linux?

Thanks again, folks.  I'm teetering on a decision, but may have to end
up sticking with pen and paper and pedal radio if it is too complex and
expensive :-(  To explain: I am an environmentalist and limit myself to
something like 10-year upgrade cycles for my hardware.  Eg., this
hard-thought purchase decision will be to replace an old casio E10 pda
and motorola phone circa 1997! ;-)

Gavin