Rating: 
Summary: BEST PDA FOR THE MONEY
Review: It was a good deal when I paid $185 after rebate with a free CF sleeve and 32mb CF. For this price no PDA is better than the 3135 IPAQ. Even thought if someone will pay regular price the color version with its multimedia capabilities and more internal mem is better, the price made it worthwhile. The PDA is awesome everryone that passes by me see the PDA and drool by jealousy. PALM lover can't get the fact their pda is stuck at 33mhz. and little mem. I'm upgrading to 256mb CF card for more mem, no IBM microdrive for me because it eats batteries like hell. So I'll add all kinds of software and etc... The best PDA ever. FOR THE PRICE i MEAN.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: My business partner and I both bought one. Mine immediately crashed and had to be returned. Hers waited a few weeks, crashed once and lost all data. It crashed a second time and it wouldn't work. We both thought it was great-----while it worked! Good definition, fairly quick response, good audio. We did have a little trouble syncing but that may have been due to the other problems. It is much too pricey to have such bugs. Neither of us had it working long enough to fairly review all the options. Too bad.
Rating:
Summary: The best in the handheld world!
Review: This little pocket PC will change your life. It does everything but the dishes, and I am working on figuring out how to make it do that! Enjoy all your favorite programs, hook up to the Internet and download your favorite pages, enjoy books (which I got free on download from Amazon.com) on Microsoft Reader, keep track of work and personal business with reminders, task lists, and the calendar feature. An absolute must have is the Microsoft Money it comes with, you can manage your checking, savings, investments,etc., with the click of a "pen". (Which it also comes with). Pocket Word, Excel, Windows Media, it's all there for you. There are so many features I just couldn't live without that I can't list them all here. You will get your money's worth and then some if you add the Compaq Flash Card and docking station. I would have given it ten stars if I could have! You need to rush right out and buy it now. Palm - MOVE OVER!
Rating:
Summary: An interesting story about the iPAQ
Review: I've had my iPAQ for 9 months and am very happy with it. It is definitely the coolest PDA out there. I just read an interesting story in the financial section of the newspaper about Compaq and Palm, and thought I'd pass that on here. According the story, Compaq made more money this quarter in the PDA market than Palm did. Handspring came in third after Palm. The explanation for this was that Palm is going through a transition in their product lines, and that it is expected to last another 1 or 2 quarters. Still, I find this interesting in view of the overall seemingly negative reception the Palm M505 is getting, which is presumably intended to be their flagship product. Also, there is the fact that the Compaq iPAQ is just a great little Pocket PC and is selling quite well. As I mentioned, I have had mine for a while now and am extremely satisfied with it. I also have a Palm IIIc and am equally happy with it. Given the quality and performance of these two PDAs, the M505 isn't going to lure me away yet, but if I didn't already have two color units I suppose I would give it more serious consideration. In any case, if Palm is to regain its dominance of the PDA market, it is going to have to fix the complaints about the M505 such as the screen brightness issue and the lack of a contrast or brightness control. Both the IIIc and the iPAQ have these, and they are quite useful. Other complaints include the lack of wireless support, and some reports of incompatibilities due to the new OS version. Still, to mention one positive thing, I test drove the unit myself and it is very fast, significantly faster than my IIIc, which I find to be quite acceptable. Still, the 505 is noticeably much faster on the screen refreshes and switching back and forth between programs. Getting back to the original topic, it will be interesting to see what Palm does to address these issues and if they can regain their dominance in this dynamic and very competitive market. The Compaq iPAQ is obviously giving them a run for their money, and if Palm doesn't watch out, I could see future erosion of this market by the iPAQ.
Rating: 
Summary: Energy Crisis
Review: The iPAQ is a great machine if you only need to use it a few minutes here and there. Anything more requires frequent recharging. There's no going on business trips without the charger. Frankly, for the price I expected better. The screen is pretty, but I can't say I'm thrilled with the tradeoff... I'd rather use a monochrome device that still has juice when it's needed. It's embarrassing to whip out this hi-tech gadget only to have to borrow a scrap of paper to write down a phone number. I'm sticking with it for now, but I'm definitely on the look out for something that suits my needs better. Toshiba has just announced a Pocket PC that might be worthwhile if the battery life beats the iPAQ, Palm is planning on moving to more powerful ARM processors, and Compaq itself will have to keep on the move to compete. For now, if you're looking for a handheld that'll fit in your pocket and run all week on a charge, you'll need to look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: iPaq offers all necessities and more
Review: This iPaq is the perfect mobile device. With PocketWord, PocketExcel and PocketOutlook, it is the perfect compliment to your desktop. I am color-blind and chose the monochrome option since I have no use for color displays. My wife has the color equivalent of this model and we both love them. I had considered purchasing an e-book reader, but chose this pda since it include MS Reader for free. For about the price of an ebook reader you get the reader and everything else as well. Microsoft ActiveSync makes it easy to keep everything synchronized between your Host PC and PDA. I even use the ActiveSync on my host to manage my files on the PDA with drag-and-drop ease. I highly recommend this PDA and its color equivalents. I also ordered the 128MB flash card from viking so I can load up on MP3s and ebooks for my pda. This package from Amazon includes the adapter for CF (Compact Flash) Cards which makes it about the best bargain I found for this model. Buy it!
Rating:
Summary: [cost efficient] power (not for CA) - I love my iPaq!
Review: The 3135, monochrome, 16 MB version of the Compaq iPaq (all of the other reviews here seem to be for the 3600 color, 32 MB versions) is still, all in all, a pretty impressive machine. The 3135 still has the iPaq 206 MHz StrongARM CPU, it comes with the CF flash memory sleeve, for memory/storage/communications upgrades, very fast USB connection for updates (my previous PDA was a Palm III, with serial cable link - daily sync would take 5 min on average; with USB/iPaq, daily sync rarely takes more than 20 seconds), and with Compaq support, can even upgrade its operating system to Linux (Compaq support...). The 16 MB is very limiting, though, so if you get this, plan to also buy CF memory...along with it. The advantages of the 3135 are speed, power, and price. You get a 206 MHz handheld system for [a higher price], compare that to the fastest Palm platform handheld, the Palm OS/Handspring Visor Platinum, [for less] for an 8 MB, 33 MHz unit. The Microsoft Pocket PC OS (really CE v3) comes with MS Media Player (for MP3s - better get at least 64 MB of flash memory, though, to take advantage of that!), pocket versions of MS Word, MS Excel, MS Outlook - maps VERY well to existing Outlook calendar functions, MS Internet Explorer (with AvantGo for offline web browsing), MS Money, MS eBook Reader, and MS Access. The conduits to convert from 'pocket' versions of files to desktop are built in and pretty transparent to the user. All you have to do to take information with you is to drag your existing files to a Pocket PC 'My Documents' folder which the install program creates on your PC desktop, and ActiveSync does the rest (by the way, if you install Linux, all you have to do is to FTP files into your handheld - same thing). The killer app for this (for me, anyway) is the MS Reader utility. eBooks are relatively small, and with my iPaq, I can carry a veritable library with me in a device the size of a pager. The monochrome screen of the 3135 is much more readable than its color (and ...more expensive) counterpart - or is this just cognative dissonance on my part? Many free books are available on the internet, from the public domain works available at...sites...I believe that even Amazon.com has an "eBooks & eDocuments" section.
Rating:
Summary: No Support
Review: The device itself has all the features I wanted but after connecting it to my Host computer found that it would not communicate with my ISP. Contacted Compaq and they advised me that the problem was with the software provided by AvantGo. AvantGo does not provide telephone tech. support so have been trying to resolve my problem via e-mail and internet without any cooperation from AvantGo. If you are a computer tech, this is a nice little device but don't buy it unless you think you can solve your problems by yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: Great unit, needs some enhancements.
Review: The iPaq is great. It does everything a laptop would do but in a much more convienent carry around size. But, if not being used with a expansion jacket, the unit is too smooth that many people I know have dropped it, one seriously enough to warrant a [spendy] repair for screen replacment. Plus, the battery life is only about 10 hours before a recharge because of the 200+ Mhz processer...
Rating: 
Summary: NOT A POCKET PC, MORE LIKE POCKET POTENTIAL
Review: THIS DEVICE HAS POTENTIAL. IN THIS DAY AND AGE OF HI-TECH GADGETS, YOU WOULD FIGURE, WITH OTHER PRODUCTS LIKE THE ARCHOS AND NOMAD MP3 PLAYERS, THAT THEY COULD INCORPERATE SOME TYPE OF HARD DRIVE WITH THIS, AS OPPOSED TO THE TYPICAL AND USELESS FLASH CARDS. I MEAN, IF THEY CARRIED EVEN A 1GB DRIVE WITH WIN98 CAPABILITIES, THIS THING WOULD BE EXTREME. I TRIED IT AND THE SOUND IS BEYOND FAIR. THE RESOLUTION IS GREAT. IT HAS A 206MHZ PROCESSOR, WHICH IS GREAT ALSO. 32RAM IS PERFECT, BUT NO DRIVE. IF IT CAME WITH A DRIVE AND WIN 98, NOT CE, THEN WE WOULD HAVE AN AWESOME PRODUCT HERE. ANOTHER THING, WHEN TRYING TO SYNCHRONIZE IT WITH YOUR PC, IT IS A HEADACHE AT 1ST. MAKE SURE ONCE YOU LOAD THE SOFTWARE AND CONNECT THE iPAQ THAT YOU LIFT THE iPAQ FROM THE CRADLE, THEN SET BACK DOWN, THATS WHEN YOU GET THE CONNECTION, OTHERWISE THE PROGRAM FOREVER SEARCHES FOR THE CONNECTOR PORT OR USB. I SEE A REAL POCKET PC VERY SOON, BECAUSE OF THIS.
|
