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Palm or Windows PDA


noahs ark

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We are looking for a PDA to use for paperless. Which would be better... Palm OS or Windows Mobile (but not a phone)?

 

Any suggestions? :huh:

There's is currently not a Wherigo player for the Palm, despite the HUGE base of Palm owners. So if that's a consideration, you'll need to go Windows PocketPC. If you're just interested in paperless caching, there's no real advantage to either.

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If you're going to use CacheMate, which will run on either OS (Operating System), the answer could be:

 

Whichever you find cheapest OR whichever OS you like the best. :)

 

You can find used Palm or PPC PDA's for as little as $10-20, up to $200, on eBay or Amazon. If all you are going to run is CacheMate, and don't need HUGE numbers of geocaches stored on your PDA, a Palm with 8 MB would be more than adequate. Palm PDAs will have anywhere from less than 8 MB to 128 MB storage and you may have an SD slot which will tremendously increase what can be stored on hand. I have something like 5-6,000 caches stored on the SD card in my Tungsten e2.

 

The newer the PDA you buy, the more features you get: Bluetooth, WiFi, MP3 Player, Video Player, etc.

 

My dad just had a Dell Axim (125?) given to him and really likes that unit.

 

Cache On!

 

JohnTee

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I've had a Treo 650 (Palm), 700p (Palm) and 700wx (Windows). I personally HATED the Windows. It was slow and crashed constantly. Only from my experience, stay away from Windows Mobile!!!

Just have to be contrary.... :)

 

hogwash!!! --- I love my Dell Axim x3 - it has always been quite stable for me and is a great companion for paperless caching.

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I have used Cachemate on both a Palm m500 and m515 and can recommend either of those for Geocaching. The screens are easy to see in bright sunlight, something that isn't true of some of the other, more expensive models. You should be able to get one of those for around $30-$40 on eBay, including the shipping. I recommend getting a hard case to protect the PDA from the rigors of caching.

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I've used both Palm and PPC. The 2 Palms are now sitting on the shelf and haven't touched either of them since I got a PPC.

The one advantage of the Palms is you can usually find serviceable Palms for very little money where PPCs generally will cost quite a bit more.

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+1 on Dell Axim. I've dropped my x5 a few times & no problems. Very bright screen. Runs GPXsonar or GPXView just fine. That's all I need.

 

If you have an iPod and you are interested in getting into this real cheap, I have written a few Windows XP scripts to help with GeoCaching. One will take a GPX file and convert it to iPod Notes. A few other bonuses in the Zip file. One is a COMPARE script that will compare up to ten GPX files and create a GPX file of only the waypoints that ALL of the GPX files have or just at least a pair of waypoints. This is useful if you want to go caching in a group and want to narrow down the search to caches that everyone (or at least two) in the group has NOT found yet.

 

Just click below.

 

http://www.rattlebars.com/GC_2iPod/

 

http://www.rattlebars.com/GC_2iPod/GC_2iPod.zip

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I've had a Treo 650 (Palm), 700p (Palm) and 700wx (Windows). I personally HATED the Windows. It was slow and crashed constantly. Only from my experience, stay away from Windows Mobile!!!

 

I've had my Dell Axim x51v for a couple of years and never had it crash. You must have had another problem with your unit. On the other hand before my Dell I had a Palm Tungsten which worked great but was poorly construction. The off/on switch kept giving problems.

 

For my Palm I had to convert the data (this takes time) to something that the Palm could read but for the Dell I can just load the GPX file direct which saves a lot of time.

 

As for the OP, if all you want is going paperless then almost any PDA will do the job. Just pick out what works best for your price range.

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I've had a Treo 650 (Palm), 700p (Palm) and 700wx (Windows). I personally HATED the Windows. It was slow and crashed constantly. Only from my experience, stay away from Windows Mobile!!!

Just have to be contrary.... :D

 

hogwash!!! --- I love my Dell Axim x3 - it has always been quite stable for me and is a great companion for paperless caching.

 

I had a Treo 650 (Palm) that was much more unstable than my current Sprint Mogul (Windows). I know several people who have the Treo 700 (windows) and have had nothing but problems with it. I am guessing it's the hardware that was originally designed for Palm, then had windows on it.

 

My Mogul (which is a PPC-6800) was designed for Windows and is quite stable, only resets when I tell it to, etc. Much better than anything Palm (I was a Palm user for years and years) has to offer.

 

Cachemate works great on a Palm and is only 8 bucks. I use GPXSonar now on my PPC and is equally nice application. So bottom line is to get what you like and is in your price range. Either platform will work great for caching.

Edited by MorganCoke
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You MUST have a PocketPC (gps enabled) PDA for Wherigo.

 

If I were buying now, I'd recommend going that way, just so you have the option. If you go Palm, you won't have the Wherigo option down the road.

On the other hand, if there aren't Wherigo caches/'adventures' already built in your area, you could pick up a cheapo used palm for less than $20 and happily cache using Plucker (free). When you want to start playing Wherigo at a later date, you can buy a PPC or (hopefully) a Wherigo comptible palm.

Edited by sbell111
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