Hardware options 2009 summer edition

[DoctorWatson]

My Palm Tung-E died after five years of loyal service. My Chinese studies have slowed to all but a halt as working with a paper dictionary is such a pain. Kudos to Pleco for PlecoDict, I never truly realized how much of a productivity boost Pleco brought to my studies. Thanks for your efforts and for making your product available to everyone at very reasonable costs!

So I'm in the market for new hardware, and with Palm moving away from their products it would seem I've left with Windows Mobile.

PDAs:

I've been looking for PDAs, and it seems that HP is the only one selling PDAs these days! So far I'm leaning towards the IPAQ 111, as the wireless internet connectively means I might actually use the device for more than language study and calendar features.

Are there any other Windows Mobile PDA vendors out there? While I like the IPAQ 111, $300 is more than I wanted to spend. I got my Tung-E for $180 back in the day and I think it was a good deal considering I used it for five years. With all of the complex electronics in a PDA these days, what type of lifetime can I expect from PDAs?

Mobile Phones:

I'm moving back to North America from Japan, and I'm totally out of sync with what is available. In Japan all of the phones are sim-locked and severely crippled so that everything must be done over the air interface. What is it like North America? Is it possible to buy a phone and just get a sim card from a network provider? Or if you find a network provider that was a WIndows Mobile phone offered through those contracts, do they allow you to install software on it and sync with your local computer?

Any recommendations for phone hardware? I'm guessing that most of the phone hardware is going to be more than the PDA option, but I'm still open to the idea as it is always nice to reduce the amount of stuff you have to haul around when you're out and abound.

 

[mikelove]

HP is about it for new Windows Mobile PDAs at the moment, though if you're trying to save money you could always go with a used model - bunch of good older iPAQs in that category, along with the ever-popular Dell Axims. Getting 5 years out of that Tungsten was very lucky; even with a new iPAQ I wouldn't count on it lasting more than a year or two. Though certainly some do last a lot longer - since there are no moving parts, the only thing that's guaranteed to wear out after a couple of years is the battery, and unlike on Palms, on Windows Mobile PDAs the batteries are easily user-replaceable.

An added benefit of going for a used model is that it keeps your options open in the future - the iPod Touch should make an excellent Pleco system once the iPhone version of Pleco is released, and the just-announced Microsoft Zune HD sounds like it might support third-party apps too (though probably not straight Windows Mobile ones, so there'd be some porting work involved on our end if we decided to support it). And you never know, Palm might decide to release a non-phone webOS device at some point - they've had a pretty good relationship with the educational market over the years and that's definitely an area where you'd want to be able to offer something that wasn't a phone.

You can get a SIM card for an unlocked phone from the two big national GSM carriers at least (AT&T and T-Mobile) - they don't advertise it but if you walk into one of their stores with an unlocked phone they'll be glad to help you. If you go with a (cheaper) postpaid instead of a prepaid plan, though, they'll probably make you sign at least a 1-year service contact, even if you're supplying your own phone. All four big US cell carriers offer discounted locked Windows Mobile phones, though, and the locking doesn't seem to prevent you from syncing or installing whatever applications you want.

Which phone hardware is best really depends on your individual preferences - there are a whole lot of opinions about that on here. The most talked-about models lately seem to be the newest HTCs (Touch Pro2 / Diamond2 and the slightly-older-but-bigger-screened Touch HD) and the Samsung Omnia SGH-i900. I don't believe any of those are available through a US carrier yet, though they should be within a few months; right now you'd have to shell out something like $500 or $600 for an unlocked verison.

As far as what is available from US carriers now, the previous-generation HTCs (original Touch Pro / Touch Diamond) are quite good too, or if you prefer a more BlackBerry-like form factor, a lot of people also like the square-screen-and-keyboard Palm Treo Pro or its Samsung equivalent the SGH-i780 - a square screen isn't exactly ideal for Windows Mobile (things tend to be a bit cramped) but they seem to be solid phones otherwise and are a lot better for e-mail / SMS / etc than the touchscreen-only phones. (the Touch Pro / Pro2 have slide-out keyboards, though they're a bit on the bulky side as a result)

You could also go for a used WM phone, though there are almost too many possibilities there to even list - market is mainly dominated by a bunch of older sliding-keyboard HTC models, though there are also some previous-generation Windows Mobile Treos and you might even get a good deal on a first-generation HTC Touch now.

And of course the Palm Pre comes out in a week or so, so assuming Pleco runs on that (we won't know until after it's released) that would be a non-WM option - they may be in short supply for the first few months after release, though.