Palm or Windows

SproutRN · Jan 11, 2006

I have a quick question for those of you in school. I know a lot of people have PDA's to keep track of cases, look up meds, etc.. I start at Texas Wesleyan in the fall and was wondering whether I should get a Windows based PDA or a Palm based PDA. What do you guys think?

You may want to contact your school and find out if they require one or the other. Where I went to school our case tracking software was only compatible with Palm.

Sprout :nurse:

nia_king · Jan 11, 2006

PALM! PALM!! PALM!!!

I had a Palm Tungsten E (now E2) that is not very high tech but will give good value for the money. I tossed it and got a kick a** DELL Axim X50. Spent close to $400 on it. Dell is windows based. My reasons were:

1: More memory on windows based PDAs

2: Wi Fi

3: the Axim was very attractive

From the 1st day I used it I HATED it. You have to go through so many menus to get to where you are going, and the calender function is very frustrating especially if you are used to the Palm calender feature. With Palm, you can color code your To do's by categories so when you look at your weekly view you automatically know how many mettings you have (say you coded meetings in yellow) exams (say red), classes (pruple), work (blue) etc without clicking on each one to know what it it. It is a very attractive feature. With windows everything is one color (blue) so you have to click on each agenda to see exactly what you scheduled..FRUSTRATING!

Bottom line is that I missed the simplicity and elegance of PALM. The new Palm TX has Wi fi, and 250Mb of memory which is more than you need for software (last time I checked they were also offering a free expansion card). Also I don't know of may softwares that are available in PC but not Palm but there are tons that are only available with PALM OS. I gave away my $400 PDA and fished out my raggedy old PALM. i will upgrade to the Palm TX as soon as i feel like i've made up to my Tungsten the wrong I did to it :)

P.S: the Tungsten E2 retails for about $199. the TX is $299

Good luck.

***Bonita*** · Jan 17, 2006

i have a palm zire 72. this is like my 4th palm in three years. whatever you do, i strongly suggest you get the longest warranty possible. i bought mine at best buy. for some reason i kept breaking it with certain programs i downloaded. well, i ended up getting upgraded new ones each time because i had that warranty. now i have had this zire for more than a year. i just bought the key board yesterday. i am excited because i thought i was going to buy a notebook or something similar for school. this is a whole lot cheaper and does all what i need. make sure you get epocrates on whatever u get. it's free and very useful. what other drug resource can u have and be updated everyday? the only bad thing about epocrates is that it does not go into too much detail about half lives and stuff. well, good luck in whatever u do.

kcwolf200 · Jan 17, 2006

I decided to buy a Palm E2. I really like it. I used to use a Pocket PC and I like my E2 better. It is easy to use and I have already beamed programs with a coworker. Thanks for all your input. I almost got a Palm TX, but I am not sure that I needed the WiFi. Bonita, good luck on your interviews and hope to see you in the fall!