Zire 71 Or M515?

[+OurWoods]

I am looking to buy my first ever palm (woohoo!) I would like to spend about 100 to 125 (I will buy from ebay) or so on the unit and some more on accesories that it might not come with.. I will mainly be using this for geocaching, but also for keeping dates and notes for work.

 

I have read a bunch of posts as well as reviews. I have basically decided on the Palm Zire 71 (zire 72 doesnt connect to gps?)or Palm m515. I travel from time to time so it would be nice to have gpx files on hand that I can upload to my GPS as I travel from place to place. I don't really need to use it for navigation (thats what my gps is for) but mainly want to go paperless/laptopless. Any thoughts that can help me narrow my option down to 1 would be appreciated!

[+Learned Gerbil]

If it is just to go paperless then you don't need to connect to the GPS.

 

If you just want to run something like Cachemate then a $20 PalmIIIxe on Ebay is as good as anything.

[+NightPilot]

What GPS do you have? Unless you have one of the $1000++ units, it won't do anywhere close to the navigation you can get from a PDA running OS5, Mapopolis and a basic GPS. For the price of the PDA + $100, you get verbal door-to-door driving directions, automatic rerouting, and no need for a PC, for the entire US or Europe, whichever you need. For this, you have to have either a universal connector or a PDA and GPS both of which have bluetooth.

 

As for the Palm, I prefer the Zire 71. It has a high-resolution screen, lots more memory, and the camera comes in handy. You can take pictures at the cache, or at your car accident, or anywhere you happen to be. You won't likely find one for the price you quoted, though. The M515, OTOH, is thin and light, and will do the job, but you won't get the voice navigation, and there isn't enough memory to run Mapopolis very well, even the old OS4 version. If you just want caching, the M515 will do the job, and lots cheaper than a Z71. You have to decide which features are more important to YOU.

[+OurWoods]

What GPS do you have? Unless you have one of the $1000++ units, it won't do anywhere close to the navigation you can get from a PDA running OS5, Mapopolis and a basic GPS. For the price of the PDA + $100, you get verbal door-to-door driving directions, automatic rerouting, and no need for a PC, for the entire US or Europe, whichever you need. For this, you have to have either a universal connector or a PDA and GPS both of which have bluetooth.

 

As for the Palm, I prefer the Zire 71. It has a high-resolution screen, lots more memory, and the camera comes in handy. You can take pictures at the cache, or at your car accident, or anywhere you happen to be. You won't likely find one for the price you quoted, though. The M515, OTOH, is thin and light, and will do the job, but you won't get the voice navigation, and there isn't enough memory to run Mapopolis very well, even the old OS4 version. If you just want caching, the M515 will do the job, and lots cheaper than a Z71. You have to decide which features are more important to YOU.

I have meri plat w/ direct route.