2. Choice Of Operating System

Discussions can be heated when it comes to choosing the operating system - Palm OS or Pocket PC. In one camp, there are the PDA purists, who want nothing more from their digital companion than a contact manager-style organizer, and who are reluctant to spend money on color displays, a digicam or an integrated MP3 player. These customers belong in the Palm camp, where they are well taken taken care of. Although the Palm operating system is moving slowly towards the colorful world of the Pocket PC, as far as the user-friendliness of the main functions are concerned, nobody does it better than the Palm OS. Technical innovations from individual manufacturers, such as the Sony digicam, cannot take anything away from the excellent usability of the Palm OS. And Palm OS 5 support for the ARM CPUs used in Pocket PCs is another plus for the Palm community. Even complex applications such as databases now run fast enough on the PDAs - although fast CPUs with colored displays will never provide several days of battery life.

If statements from Palmsource, the developer of the Palm OS, are to be believed, future innovations, such as improved telephony support for Smartphones, will not detract from the functionality of the OS. A Palm will still be a Palm. Palm OS 6, expected by the end of 2003, will be no different in that respect.

In the opposing camp, we have the gadget-fixated Pocket PC user, who cannot live without features such as MP3 and video playback. Nevertheless, interest in high-tech PDAs is not limited to the gadget freaks. Windows PC users immediately feel at home with PPCs when they discover the delights of their familiar Windows desktop and Start Menu on the display.

Test Results In Detail

The test group ranges from low-cost, entry-level PDAs to high-end, professional devices. Newcomers to PDAs should be careful of the very cheapest offerings, as our tests show.

PDAs are not yet mass-market products that can be manufactured at minimal cost. To create entry-level products, manufacturers are forced to seriously restrict the list of available features, as the Zire from Palm and the Dell Axim show. Both of these models come with very basic specifications and will satisfy only the most modest of aspirations. These models highlight the differences between Palm and Pocket PC PDAs. While the Palms get by with a monochrome display and 2 MB of RAM, the Pocket PCs feature 240 x 320 pixel color displays and 64 MB of memory out of the box. It is easy to see why there is a large price difference. Data transfer via Wireless LAN or Bluetooth remain the preserve of the most expensive models. You cannot buy a PDA with these features for less than $599.