Ten tips

By Laura T. Coffey

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 22, 2001

How to shop for a personal digital assistant

If your Filofax isn't cutting it, a personal digital assistant, or PDA, may be for you. These handheld devices let you store thousands of phone numbers, calendar entries and notes. They also send and receive e-mail and transfer data to and from your desktop computer. Some do even more. So how do you decide?

1. Reflect on your needs. PDAs cost $100 to $1,000 or more. Before you head to the store, ask yourself: Do I simply need a lightweight organizer? Do I need to work on spreadsheets, write documents and surf the Internet? How much time will I spend using the PDA each day?

2. Screen-based PDAs are small and simple. To operate such models, users tap the screen with a stylus pen. Handwriting-recognition software makes text entry possible. Such PDAs fit in a pocket, boast long battery lives and cost less than their bulkier counterparts, but most of them can't browse the Internet.

3. Keyboard-based PDAs can do more. Such models, which look like miniature laptop computers, allow you to access the Internet and work on text documents and spreadsheets. Such PDAs are good if you need to do light typing, but they won't fit in your pocket. Also, as soon as you add extras such as color screens and sound into the mix, expect the price to shoot up and battery life to go down.

4. Credit card-size models are simplest of all. These diminutive items range cost $100 to $150. They're good for viewing addresses, phone numbers and appointments that you type into your desktop computer and transfer over to them.

5. Is it in sync? Consider the quality and quantity of the PDA's software and hardware peripherals. Such factors affect which e-mail and word-processing programs and other applications your PDA will be able to support.

6. Thanks for the memory. PDAs come with 2 to 32 megabytes of memory. Two megabytes are ample for most PDA users.

7. Think about the display. If you choose a black-and-white display and you leave the backlight off, your PDA should keep humming along for extended periods of time. In contrast, color displays drain batteries after a few hours of uninterrupted use.

8. Know thyself. Think about your affinity for technology, or lack thereof. If you don't think you're likely to tap on a small screen or keyboard to record phone numbers and appointments, you might want to stick with a regular date book.

9. Get recommendations. Talk to PDA users you know about what they like and dislike about their model.

10. Kick the tires. Before you buy, try out a lot of PDAs. Type on the keyboards and examine the displays in both darkened and well-lit areas. Reflect on whether you truly need or want a souped-up model.

- Sources: Microsoft's eShop and Consumer Reports.

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