@migo PD-600c Pocket PC

UR There

Price: $500 Coolness score: 7 Ease of use: 6

An alternative Pocket PC, this one is the only one that includes a built-in PCMCIA Type II (aka PC Card) slot. That lets you put a wide-area wireless card to get Internet access. But the card cal also accept a digital camera card, a wireless LAN card, GPS card, Bluetooth or a hard disk card. The device comes with 32M bytes of RAM, full color screen, USB cable and other standard Pocket PC features.

Visor Neo

Handspring

Price: $200 Coolness score: 7 Ease of use: 7

If you haven't purchased a PDA yet, or want to get that "first PDA" for a friend or relative, the Visor Neo is a good choice. It's a bit more expensive than some other "entry-level" PDAs, but with the Neo you get a great processor (the fastest Palm OS processor available) and all of the Springboard expansion capabilities like most of the other Visor models.

Sony Clie PEG-N610C

Sony

Price: $400 Coolness score: 7 Ease of use: 6

Sony makes and markets their Palm-based PDAs to a consumer market, in fact they call their devices 'personal entertainment organizers.' The add-on applications for the N610C include PictureGear Pocket, which lets you view photographs, and gMovie Player, which you lets view movie files. This particular version doesn't have an MP3 player, but you can purchase an additional add-on module that will let you listen to music. The Palm OS looks a little bit differently on the color screen, dare I say almost more "consumer-friendly." But at its base is still a Palm OS device that you can use as an organizer and download all those Palm-based applications.

HP Jornada 565 Pocket PC

Hewlett-Packard

Price: $600 Coolness score: 7 Ease of use: 6

The newest Pocket PC model has the new Pocket PC 2002 operating system, 32M bytes of RAM, and a stylish interface. The color screen is quite impressive. If you prefer the Pocket PC over the Palm OS for your PDA, this device is worth a look. The new features of the Pocket PC 2002 OS also have more features appealing towards enterprises, such as wireless-ready hooks, VPNs, etc.

Handspring Visor Prism

Handspring

Price: $300 Coolness score: 8 Ease of use: 7

Handspring model with a bright color screen. Has everything that other Handspring models contains. We tested ours with AirPrime's Sprint PCS Digital Link module, which gave us a Sprint PCS phone and wide-area network access to do things like e-mail, Short Message Service and Web browsing with the Blazer Web browser.

Visor Pro

Handspring

Price: $300 Coolness score: 8 Ease of use: 7

The latest Handspring model has a lot of features packed into it: 16M bytes of RAM (most of any Palm OS-based device), a professional metallic cover, a rechargeable battery, a fast processor, the Springboard expansion slot and a decent price. If you don't have a Handspring yet, this is the one to get. If you've got a Handspring but need some more memory for your files or programs, it's also worth a look.

Palm m505

Palm

Price: $450 Coolness score: 8 Ease of use: 7

A color Palm with the added benefit of an expansion slot that accepts Secure Digital (SD) and MultiMedia Cards (MMC). This is a step up from the previous Palm IIIc models, and it's sleek and stylish like the Palm V series. The addition of the expansion slot gives it some expandability potential, but still not as many options as a Handspring Visor. But if you're a Palm junkie, this is the PDA you have to have (for the moment).

Royal Excelsior

Royal

Price: $30 Coolness score: 3 Ease of use: 6

A decent inexpensive organizer to keep general information, schedules, phone numbers, etc. It's small, so it travels well, but the user interface is tiny, so entering information can be difficult at times. And the screen can be hard to read. It doesn't have the functionality of a PDA, but does the job to get you on your way to being organized. If you really don't want to spring for a $100 Palm PDA (m100 or m105), this is a really inexpensive way to let your employees keep track of meetings, client information, tasks, etc. -Marlo Matoska

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