Who of you out there with a PDA "really" use it?

There was a discussion about this on slashdot recently. Most did agree that their PDA didn't get used much, but some used it for reading e-books on the go.

I have a friend who still uses his Newton to this day. He uses it for calenders, mostly, but also for fiddling with when bored and occaisionally hurredly doing homework I'm planning on getting a Nokia 770 when they come out, and I see myself using it an awful lot - a full embedded Linux system complete with terminal and GCC, as well as 54g WiFi and BlueTooth Nowhere will be safe

When I had my Treo, I only used it as a phone and email, I never used it as a "PDA"...it took too much time to enter the information into iCal and to sync it.

Prior to getting a laptop, I used my Clie as one for school. Got a nifty little keyboard and typed up all my notes like that. I sort of miss that set up simply because it was so tiny/compact/light compared to my PB/iB. But I hardly used it for anything else... oh wait, I must have clocked in hours and hours of Bejeweled. Sigh. Miss that game dearly.

I have a treo 650.

The main features I use heavily are:

The phone
contacts
camera / video camera
calendar
email
ms word
palmvnc
verichat
pocket tunes
ringo
few other alarm apps, etc..

The only things I don't really use that came standard with it is excel.

Someone gave me a clie sj-33 and gave it to my son. I have no use for one.

I've been looking for a PDA the past couple weeks, particularly the new Palm TX.

I don't really need it for PIM functionality, since I have a Nokia 6600, which I use a lot for it's Calendar and Contacts functions and since it's a mobile phone, I carry it almost everywhere I go without having to worry about carrying 'another' piece of kit.

The one thing I thought was neat with the Palm TX, was the ability to check email and browse the web (in landscape display mode) via the Wifi connection at home, cafe's and the office, although I probably do too much of that already - so I'll stop looking now.

I also use my phone for contacts.

We were given an iPaq at work. Mine sat in it's box for a year before I gave it back.

My Tungsten E is collecting dust most of the time but i still use it to remind me of my family and freinds birthday cuz i can't remember JACK!


Bless

I have never used a PDA before. I see some people at school with them but other than that I don't think that I would get much use out of them as a pad of paper and a pen work quite well at the moment. Funny as I try to be less of a paper waster but I just find that writing something down w/a pen works best for me.

i have a sony ericsson p900 that ive been using since it came out and i use almost every feature.. phone, contacts, calendar, jotter (note pad) quickword, etc. i had a palm before it and i never ever used it.. i guess when its very functional and simple and hooked up to a cell phone people tend to use it more.
now the new P990... wow... 3G (UMTS) 384kbps, wifi, 2mp camera, another camera in the front for video-conferencing, a keyboard AND a real keypad (unlike any other so-called pda phones)
im getting horny.

I the same as you, I used to use it alot but I don't find it useful anymore. I now pretty much use it as a AUS$500 alarm clock

I'm I student so I should try to get into the habit of using it again as when I did I actually did more homework as I would set about 2 hours a day to do H/W.

i have some Palm... thing at work. obviously i know a lot about it and use it frequently. In truth it's never left the dock on my desk. I took it to a couple of meetings but it's soooo much easier to take paper notes and transfer to my PC later. And I use my phone for anything I need to have with me all the time, so there's no point.

Even my first PDA, a Newton, I didn't really use. Granted I was in high school, but it wasn't worthwhile for anything. Everyone loved playing with it tho.

I liked to use the PDA's Mah Jong game, but I also do much better writing stuff down with a pen and paper.

After going through two Palm M-100's I got a Kyocera Smartphone and heavily use the address book, calendar, and memo sections. Got lots of password protected info that's handy to have anywhere you'd carry a mobile phone while travelling.

Backed up on the iMac, all info is available in Palm Desktop.

Also play Vexed or read downloaded files when having to wait on something. It's my extended brain and I hope it never quits working as there is no better implementation imo even if there are more modern ones.

Zire 71

I bought a Zire 71 about 3 years ago and I use it ALL the time and my life is so much more organized.

i used to forget appointments and important dates ALL the time. But with this, I have everything. When I am told of an event, I put it in right away.

All my contacts on here in the Address book, I use the Notepad to make small notes all the time. I no longer carry photos in my wallet, they are all on my palm.

I use Avanto to download USAToday and various other new sources.

Needless to say, i use it ALL the time. It's just a matter of getting used to depending on it instead of a notebook or address file folder.

iGary said:

I have a Treo and barely use it....

Why would I put down my flight information on my calendar when it I have to print out a confirmation anyway?

Isn't a paper to do list easier than a PDA?

Aside from addresses and contacts. I find the things pretty useless.

OK, Edit:

I use it for an alarm.

I suppose I should use it for business mileage...

Click to expand...

You could PDF your flight information and sync it on your PDA. Or you could copy and paste the info into a notepad and it would be on your Treo. And, yes, you can get a spreadsheet program and keep your mileage on there. Sync your spreadsheets, and link the mileage to your more formal report or record-keeping spreadsheet. Contact info is good to have in your hand, thus the name PALM!

I confess I haven't been using my Clie as much lately, but I need a new battery. I have my laptop with me most places anyway. I plan on getting a new battery and keeping it updated and with me like I used to.

i have a palm tungsten T3 which i have no problem with and use on a daily basis, generaly i use it for work as quick notes and salling clicker, i also couple it with my tomtom navigator 5, for bluetoothed gps which is great and it gets used mainly for that, im thinking of updating it to a palm T/X which is a little funkier with the black, but more importantly uses wifi saves buying another sd card.

so if any one in the uk wants to buy a good working t3. has a few pings, but becasue its solid state there are no defects in the machine, and works for me great, im just one of those who needs the latest toy. otherwise id keep it

Years ago I planned on buying a laptop, back when I was 13 with no real income. I was pretty buggered really. back when laptops cost a small fortune and nobody really had them. My dad was close to getting me one at some point. but when I was 16, my dad said if I went to college he'd buy me a Pocket PC. really I was after a Casio EM500. So i went to college, and just after enrolling he took me to Rio Systems (some mates of ours). Only the secretary said that PC World didn't stock the EM500 but had a faster newer Toshiba E-300 (i think it is). we "bought" the Pocket PC there, took a form down to PC World and picked it up VAT free. which was pleasant!

First of all I loved it. totally fell in love. sure it was no real computer but it had a mini-photoshop on there, and a few other surprises. I liked it. all until a week later we went on a quick holiday to Ireland and it crashed. me, thinking that the restart toggle would restart it. well it did. with no software on it! Effectively left with nothing more than Word and Excel on there.

Nowadays I dont use it. partly down to that fact I have to buy software to get it working on OS X. Which is a little sad as the PC alternative is free, and it doesn't really do anything more for the end-user than the PC version. I wish i could use it though. Its fantastic, so much potential but in the wrong hands.

EDIT: if it had 802 wireless then I would use this all the time. i kicked myself when i read a month after buying mine they had added wireless for no extra cost -_-

I have a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500, and I must admit, I don't use it very much. It's fun to play around with as it runs Linux, but it'd be more useful if I could get GCC working on it so that I could compile open source apps for it. I've thought about buying a big SD card and CF WiFi adapter for it so that I could use it for web/email and watching movies, but I haven't done that so far. I really don't have a need for a calendar, I keep mine in my head and do just fine. I do have a fairly large Address Book, but the lack of a good Mac->Zaurus sync solution sort of makes the Zaurus less useful for that. Besides, I don't have a cell phone, so if I need somebody's contact info to call them, I'm probably near my computer anyway.