Re: Palm/Wireless Comparison Report

[Alan Nichols <hippie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, I have been using one of the Qualcomm PDQ-1900 phones for the last
couple of weeks, and just wanted to chime in with my own opinions on the
device.

If you are looking for something that integrates full PDA functions with
digital cell phone and pager functions, this might be the perfect device.
Yes, the phone is bigger than any other modern cell phone, and it is
a fair bit bigger than any PalmPilot, but I do not think that it is too
large or unwieldly to carry around easily.  Integration of the phone
functions with the Palm apps is good.

You do have to take some care to make sure the batteries stay charged -
I found that they can run down to the point of autoshutoff overnight,
with the phone left on.

Where I find this thing somewhat lacking is in its wireless network
access.  Basically, it acts like the Palm is plugged into a cellular
modem.  Generally it takes on the order of 30 seconds to dial in and
connect - not unusual for modem access, but this is dead time that
you are paying your cellular company for.  The web browser works - but
since very few web pages are designed for viewing on such a lightweight
device, so the presentation is horrible and finding the information you
are looking for can be very difficult.  (Not the fault of the web browser!
I blame web designers that blindly assume that everyone in the world
has a Windows 95 PC running either Netscape or IE, at 800x600 resolution,
24 bit color, and do not do anything help enable their content to work
on anything else.)

Another thing that I noticed - the screen is somewhat smaller than the
screen in my PalmPilot Pro - and not well set in the case.  The part
of the screen used for display is flush against the edge of the mounting,
so that some small things on the edges of the screen can vanish.  In particular,
I was trying to test the writing, and a capital I at the edge of the screen
was invisible.  


On to another topic .... despite the somewhat unfavorable reviews the Palm VII 
has been getting, I still think that Palm has the right idea with that device.  
But I think hey will only hurt themselves charging as much as they are.

Alan

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