Recomendations for PDAs for professional + personal use?

sunnygirl272 · Jul 18, 2002

once again...love my visor prism..

prmenrs, RN · Jul 18, 2002

I think I will love my palm 130 some day, but still trying to get my organizer organized!!!

2ndCareerRN · Jul 18, 2002

A lot depends on what you are looking for.

Handspring has a nice one out now...it is color, has 16mb of memory, takes all the plugin modules, and runs around 300$.

There are others that aren't as much, but you don't get as much.

I have a visor Pro that is great.

http://www.handspring.com

Let your technoGeek do the research for you. Just let him know what you want it for.

bob

janetrnc · Jul 18, 2002

I have a Palm V11x and I love it, I bought a reconditioned one from Returnbuy.com, it works great and the cost was a third of a new one! :rolleyes:

Natalieboo · Jul 18, 2002

I agree with the Visor Prism!! I bought the cell modem with it and can cruise the internet on it, it's awesome!

ADN 2002 · Jul 24, 2002

I have a Toshiba Pocket PC e310. It's great - it's got color and 32 MB memory, ran me about $340 on eBay.

I have a couple suggestions though:

1. Check out eBay - you can get some AWESOME deals there -- my PDA retails for $400, you can see what kind of deal I got...

2. Go to http://www.epinions.com - this website consists of reviews written by real people about all kinds of products - including PDA's. This helped me a lot when I was trying to figure out what kind of PDA I wanted.

Hope this helps...

hoolahan, ASN, RN · Jul 24, 2002

I am no OB nurse, and avoid this forum like then plague, but I'll cut n paste this from my post opn student nurses forum. IN fact you may want to do a search for PDA's here, there have been a lot of threads about them, I learned good stuff here.

I just bought a Visor Pro. I went through a lot of research to settle on this one. (Just got it about 15 minutes ago via FedEx!! Weeeeee can't wait to play!!!)

First, do a google search or go to http://www.palm.com or http://www.handspring.com and read some articles, see what you want this thing to do for you. I know I want to create databases for my nurses notes in HH, and in my new workers comp CM job, I don't want to be dragging charts and files around. I can enter notes into palm, sync to PC and print out notes, viola!

Second, go to some computer stores, but DON"Y BUY!! Play with all the various types of the demos models. I went to Best Buy and got a great book, about all you can do with palms. BIG help!! Found out I can enter shortcuts for words, like make pt=patient, but when it writes or prints, it auto converts to the spelled out word, this will come in very handy for those notes I take in the field!!

You will be amazed at all the choices, it is very hard to choose. The Handspring treo's have built in keyboards, but they were all color and had things I wouldn't use. From what I read, color drains the batteries, so for me, that would not work on the road for extended periods. That automatically elim all the color units for me.

Once I saw the choices and had an idea that they are all very very similar. I decided I wanted the most memory in B&W. That took me to the Visor Pro, with adaptors, you can even give a power point presentation w just the palm top!!

I purchased a portable keyboard, folds up to same size as palm $69 at best buy, by tragus, works w visors.

I also picked up streetmap software, since I will be on the road, and able to zoom in to local roads, instead of having local road map of every county in several states. And Documents To GO, which allows me to interface w word and excel on my PC.

Handspring has an area of its website called handango, it's a lot of freeware software to download, and other downloads dirt cheap. RN tracker or pt keeper look good for hospital nursing. I plan to download medrec, since this will work better for me in my position, I can enter consultants, pt demographics, etc... They also have most of the programs mentioned above. TONS of medical programs, many are free.

So, my advice is go play, then buy on-line. I did a lot of price-surfing and actually got the best deal on handspring, $199 plus free travel charger, and free shipping. (I thought this was a car charger, but it's not, bummer!) It was the same price on most other sites, but no other freebies or free software.

HazeK · Jul 24, 2002

Last month, my dear husband the computer geek was telling all his friends he was going to be the first in our family to get a PDA....

Last week, we were discussing the subject of PDAs w/ some friends, and I was able to intelligently contribute to the conversation....

Last night, he asked me why I wanted one and what I would use it for!

***Yippee! Christmas is comming***

I hope, by then, to have made a good decision!

I think my Santa is begining to see that it would be a useful tool for me!

Keep up the great suggestions and referrals!

Haze :cool:

PS. Yes, of course I could just go buy the one I want...but my beloved 'geek' really prefers to do the technical purchases...makes him feel good!