Got myself a new toy last week. A Ipaq, bargin at £180 brand new:-



I didn't realise at the time, how many cool things it does. As well as all the basic PDA things, it can play games (anybody remember Quake1???), I have also purchased the Sat Nav addon which is so cool, since it navigates with a 3D map and warns of speed cameras. Also, while it is in the car, I can listern to all my music and it displays the play list of the songs on the screen, which is so so cool.

But the biggest cool factor of all, is that it can play DVD's (well once compressed down and copied across). Heres ashot of 50cents P.I.M.P video:-



The quality of that picture doesn't really do it any justice, in real life the picture is nearly perfect. I seem tobe getting a lot of people leaning over my shoulder at the moment on the train

Also I have got hold of the software development kit, I hope to make some games for it. I have ported across a old version of my game I made in the past http://www.theoutpost.tk, but if anybody has any good ideas for a handheld game(something I am bad at) then I would be intrested in hearing them.

i must say i do like this. i am considering getting one for myself but may be slighlty cheaper. my friend bought his in the states for $50 but his is not colour screen. any advise for whn i am looking for one to buy?

Well, Brand new you might be able to get cheaper models, maybe £20-£30 cheaper if you look around. The are pretty similar in functionality as well as long as you don't want to do Sat Nav and stuff like that.

Else you could try looking on Ebay, you could probably pick up some cheap ones for near a £100 I reckon. It all depends what you want to do with it. If you want to just store phone numbers, etc, get a really cheap one. Or if you want to play movies and stuff then it will cost you more.

hmmmmmmm like the sound of that toy I was going to get an ipod but seems like this toy does more. hmmmmmmmmmmm I gonna look on dealtime I never take chances with stuff like that buying second hand I am sure I can get a good deal on the net somewhere.

Yeah, it does much more, if you get a 4gb Microdisk Compact flash card, you have all the storage you really need. I doubt people really fill up there Ipods with 20gig of music.

Been thinking about getting one of these for a while...what additions (if any) do they need to handle email (pick up and reply) on the move? Also what about handling files in Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint as attachments to messages?

Also have to admit I'm not on the iPod thing...I have a Creative Nomad jukebox (20GB) which is excellent for sound (so long as you buy decent headphones - those supplied are crap!) and portability...I have and listen to a lot of music so it's usually about three-quarters full...plus I have SoundBlaster Live/Audigy soundcards in my PCs at home so it seemed to make sense...

It has outlook built into it. To pick up mail on the move, you would either need a GPRS card, or a mobile phone with bluetooth and GPRS. I haven't tried attachments, but I believe they would work, since it does have a full(but basic) office suite.

Thanx for info. Will definitely look into this...

can they play music. if so it will make better sense me getting one than an ipod indeed

Yep, here's 2 pictures, each with a different skin, 1 with a playlist and small fiddly buttons and another with huge buttons and text:-





Quality is a bit dodge, but you get the idea.

Also anybody remember the Lucas Arts games Sam n Max, Day of the tentacle, Monkey island...etc they all work on it to

i am defenitly getting one. hopefully before winter. plus than i can get route finder gsm etc for when i can drive

which is the best brand? do compaq do any?

Yep, I use TomTom, seems pretty good to me so far, hasn't got me lost

what make or brands do your reccomend ?

The HP Ipaq 2210 (which is what I have) is pretty good. Its well priced, has bluetooth, and 2 memory expansion slots (most only have 1).

The HP ipaq 19xx series are cheaper but lack a few of the extra's which you probably need if you want to use Sat Nav.

Above that they start getting quite expensive, for not much more gain. They are maybe a little lighter and have a few extra gadgets such as WiFi and thumb print security, but thats about it.

As for other brands, Asus is meant to be quite good, and Dell one's are the cheapest I think, but I didn't look too much into them.

About the price, keep in mind that they only have about 20-30MB of storage space as standard, you will want to buy an extra memory card. I bought a 256 one for £40 (I will buy a bigger one in the near future), with just music, you could fit about 4 albums on the 256 card. And also a card reader for your pc, since transfering data through the Ipaq is dog slow.