Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of running around, and I’ve had to carry a fair bit of information – figures, addresses, maps etc – around with me. My smartphone isn’t really up to the job, especially when I want to scribble a quick note or give someone directions, so it’s with a certain amount of delight that I’ve discovered the portable, skinnable 9p PDA. It’s only digital in the sense that you hold it in your digits when you use it; it’s a memo pad from Asda that did indeed cost 9p. I bought a whole bunch of them the other week and I’m already wondering how I managed without them.
It’s reminded me of something that tech journalists shouldn’t forget: sometimes a 9p book of lined paper is more useful than a £400 digital gizmo.
Of course, if you’re a show-off you could always use the Hipster PDA instead.
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Notepads are great. Another useful tip I got from the toothpastefordinner.com mailing list was this: check out the library some time — it’s like the internet only with books :)
Every upgrade is a downgrade.
Yeah, my Palm Tungsten T3 is for sale on eBay; just can’t take its crap anymore. I’m experimenting with a Hipster PDA and a Snopake Noteguard, which is a bit like your Asda notebook but has a plastic cover and a bit of elastic thread to hold it closed. Has a handy pocket in the back for my travelcard too!
I also have what I’ve seen described as a “pocket briefcase”: I was given mine years ago by one of the companies I covered when I was an investment analyst. It’s a little leather notecard holder, with a pocket on the front that holds one or two cards by their edges so you can write on them in situ.
All three of the above together are about the same size as the Tungsten, weigh a lot less, don’t need to be recharged, and surf the Internet about as well, given that the Tungsten takes at least a minute to make a Bluetooth connection, usually crashes while doing this, and once crashed, can’t be turned off or reset for several minutes.
Yeah. I’ve had a few PDAs/overly complex smartphones over the years and always gave up on them. That said, I quite fancy the iMate JAM – pocketPC and phone in one device that isn’t the size of a house brick. A 3G version of that would be rather nifty, I reckon.
I have heard a lot of nice things about them, and they do look good. I just have this thing for tiny phones…