Suitable for Children???

[gweipo]

My 6 year old daughter has just started at a chinese school. She's learning her characters at a rate of knots and just LOVES using the flashcard function of the plecodict on my Palm Tungsten.
I rashly promised to get her a PDA for her upcoming birthday to use on the bus on the way to school, thinking that they must have come down dramatically in price. All she needs is a largish screen and the functionality and dictioneries of Plecodict. It must be kid resistant, and durable and cheap, and no hassles with scratching / synchronising / updating / batteries etc.
Now with the current crisis with Palm, I guess my best bets are HPiPaq 111 or Dell axim X51v. But at US$180-280 for an ebay version, plus after reading the moans and groans on sites like amazon about customer service / help (basically none it seems), I don't know what to do. I've never had a problem with my Palm, but that's not the future.

Any suggestions?
Anyone out there wanting to create something for kids? If you want my advice, make something 2x the current size, limit the functionality and sell it packaged with the software preloaded .... (investors? I'll do it)

 

[ldolse]

Go with 1.0 and an older used Palm. The older palms are probably about as rugged as anything you could get, and a you can get a zire pretty cheap on ebay, some cheap enough that it's not a big deal to just buy another one if it breaks. Anything new enough to run 2.0 gets into more expensive and more fragile territory.

 

[mikelove]

Yes, a used Palm and 1.0 would probably be the best bet - since you can move the license over to Windows Mobile later, there's not really any harm in starting out with a Palm and it would definitely save you some money.

We've wanted to develop a dedicated Pleco device for years now, but the numbers on that are kind of tricky, particularly given the complexity of distributing such a device internationally - we are however reviving the idea of distributing Pleco on SD cards, which would simplify installation a little at least.

 

[hippo]

Palm Zire Z22 is $93.23 on amazon.com.

 

[radioman]

I was going to sell mine to you... but then remembered I have a 4 and an 8 year old that can use my Palm... 好注意。。。

 

[daniel123]

I used a Zire 31 for some years. Should be about 50 Dollar at eBay. Very robust. Pleco 1.03 runs great. The display is not very big but everthing looked good for my eyes.