Spec me a PDA please

Spesh · 9 Oct 2007 at 20:26

Hey guys

I need a PDA for work to do the following :-

Easily enter information into word/excel documents (mostly tick boxes, but some typing)
Will be used outside so needs to be one of the waterproof/resistant types
Needs to be rugged as it will be used on site
Will be used for satnav purposes
Needs to have as good a battery life as possible.

Any pointers? Its been an awful long time since i even held a pda let alone needed one, i was looking at the small laptops as thats what i'd prefer but I dont think its viable as its going to be a bit big and fragile

Thanks in advance

Mark

FunkyCowie · 9 Oct 2007 at 20:47

How much? An XDA Exec is pretty much a Palm top and could be used with SatNav if you picked up a gps reciever. But then at £4-600 its quite a lot. So something like a £80 XDA Mini S for example you can pick up for about £80-90 its a converged PDA/Phone again if you got yourself a GPS reciever (30-40) you got what you need. Though the major difference is one has a nice big screen decent res screen and the other only has a small 320x240 screen. Get yourself an otterbox case for either and you'll be laughing.

Spesh · 9 Oct 2007 at 23:15

tbh i'm not sure how much, work will be purchasing it so i guess around 200notes would be about right. The most important bit is its durability

Intel Guy · 10 Oct 2007 at 19:35

the main decision i would say is whether you want to make calls on it or not.

If not then i have just bought the Asus A696, its a great windows mobile 6 device, in a smart metal chassis, so should be fairly rugged, its has a built in GPR reciever and most versions ship with Copilot software, and is a great price point.

If you want to make calls too, then the HTC Tytn II is generally the best device out there, although it is rather cumbersome and not the thinnest device. Ive also used the Treo 750v which was pretty good. Having a phone included will impact batter life greatly though.Hope this helps

Meatball · 10 Oct 2007 at 21:09

T-Mobile Vario 3 ticks all of your boxes

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sidethink · 11 Oct 2007 at 11:47

MDA III is a very nice one - it (and most other) PDAs cant be described as rugged though. With a team of ten engineers (working only indoors) we go through about 8 replacements a year.

They are ignorant savages of course, I'd bet they could break anything within seconds of being issued it but its worth noting that unless you go for a specialist ruggedized version, mishaps will occur.