PDA stands for Personal Digital Assistant. You probably have heard about devices with names such as Palm, Psion, Zaurus, Cassiopeia, iPAQ or whatever they might be called. Those small devices helping you to get organized, remember phone numbers and other contact data, take notes, list your appointments, etc. Well, I have found what is probably the ultimate PDA. Readability is no problem at all anywhere from twilight to direct bright sunlight, but I do admit that, due to it having no screen with active backlight, it's not possible to read from it in pitch dark. For that, at least a pocket light or similar is required.
I have heard lots of people complain about battery life or about running out of power at an inconvenient moment and not have a charger with you. Never happened to me and I doubt it will ever happen (touch wood). Also I don't need to use some special pen to write on it, most anything will do without the danger of scratching the screen and damage it permanently. However, handwriting recognition can be a bit tricky at times.
Something which is very convenient is it's special support for business cards, especially if you are in Japan from time to time. (By the way, no problems at all with business cards in Japanese, even though it is not a Japanese model.) The whole device is totally multilingual; name a language, I'm sure it will be supported. You can even adjust things you don't like and change them manually to any language if you feel like doing so.
My PDA is also rather robust. It's not a big deal if I accidentally sit on it once in a while. However, it definitely does not like to get soaked. It will still continue to function, but some of the data stored on it may get damaged.
These days PDA's come with internet connectivity and huge amounts of memory. Unfortunately, mine does not do internet and memory gets tight around autumn usually, when I start adding stuff for the following year.
All things considered I'm very happy with my PDA and I'm sure I have one of the most reliable ones, running at minimum cost and I can enjoy about the most user friendly interface you can imagine. Want to have a look at my PAA?
