Best PDA for Production?

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EARTH_TOME

Member
I'm looking into purchasing a PDA for keeping track of contacts in Production. Also budgets, schedules, overall equipment tracking, etc. A translator built in would be nice to have. I would need access to email but no need for browsing the web. A cell phone hookup will suffice.

Is there anyone that owns a PDA and has used it in Production?

Q: Why don't you use google?
A: Because this is specific and I don't trust review sites anymore since I know that alot of times companies "buy" good reviews. And I would rather hear it from someone that actually has owned one for more than a few months and find it to be valuable to their business (Production/Film/Etc)
 
Re: Best PDA for Production?

Whatever you do, don't get toshiba. I had nothing but problems with my toshiba PDA... wouldn't upgrade it to windows 2003 and also broke after a few months of use.

I would highly recommend a Dell Axim

They're hi-powered with good support and highly upgradable. It has built in Wi-Fi and bluetooth, has a built in microphone so translater software should be available or textual translation. I wouldn't recommend a palm. There's a lot more limitations to the palm style pda's than with the PocketPCs... pocketpcs are basically hand held computers, palms are something a little different. Not quite a regular computer. That's personal preference though. What I look for in a PDA a PPC has and a palm doesn't. I am planning on buying a dell axim for myself for production... it has built in MS Word for PPC... so any word files you'd have like scripts work flawlessly with it.
 
Re: Best PDA for Production?

I would suggest a Sony Clie, I have one and it's awesome.
 
Re: Best PDA for Production?

Palm OS isn't so much a mini computer... you can get programs that you know and are familiar with on a PPC... it runs a version of windows... palm os is very foreign in nature than any other OS... i dunno, it's really just personal preference. Besides, PPCs you can write anywhere on the screen and have it register. Palms you have to write in the specific area....
 
Re: Best PDA for Production?

It really depends on what you want your handheld to do for you. If you're really power hungry, then nothing short of a laptop is going to serve your needs. Cramming the power of a laptop into the size of a palmtop just hurts your wallet more then anything else.

Palm is a great OS with great support and a thick library of secondary apps (the pCine software alone is worth buying palm if you shoot film).

BUT...the palm is and always will be an organizer platform, and it does that very well. Palm has also inked a deal to use Outlook on their next releases, increasing the functionality of the unit.

Palms are great (i've owned three in the past) for keeping your life straight, passing the time, and performing the needed tasks of a digital assistant. Pocket PC's really seem to straddle a line for me between a digital assistant and a laptop, and I've usually found that it does neather as well as I'd like it to. I'd seriously look at them again though if I needed to ditch my current solution.

I've owned a palm, a handspring and a clie, but I gave up on palm after buying a sidekick. I found that organizing my life was great, but getting my emails was more important then anything.

My answer is to always get the cheapest object that does what you need it to do rather then what you want it to do.
 
Re: Best PDA for Production?

Thanks for the responses guys!

I own a Powerbook Laptop - so I know what you mean by straddling that line between the two. However, I don't carry my laptop around everywhere, and I want on the fly access to contacts, etc - JUST IN CASE.

Here are the things I need:

Contact lists
Datebook/Calendar
To-Do list
Email
Word
Excel
Voice recording (<- VERY IMPORTANT) and a good quality one not a static filled one
Books on the PDA
Some sort of Dictionary/Thesarus

That's all I can think of right now... I don't need a camera nor video capture. It would be nice if it plays MP3's, but that's not a NEED.
 
Re: Best PDA for Production?

Yeah, sounds like you'd be better suited with a microsoft platform. As rob reccomends, check out the Dell stuff.
 
Re: Best PDA for Production?

Yeah, for all of that, you want a PPC... they're far more advanced when it comes to multi-media...
 
Re: Best PDA for Production?

I have a laptop, so all I really needed out of my PDA was a calendar. So viola, the Clie works just fine for me.
 
Re: Best PDA for Production?

Yeah... palms tend to be a tad cheaper as well depending on the model you get. If all you need is a calender, address book, and to do list, then a palm is great. The whole thing is, if that's all you need, why are you getting a PDA? The reason a PDA is such an effective productivity tool is that it is capable of multiple tasks within itself. If all you need is a calender go to a stationary store and buy yourself a small personal organizer and a pen :P
 
Re: Best PDA for Production?

I've tried that, I am forever updating and changing things, and I always ran out of room on those.

Plus you look so cool taking out a palm. The girls are all like "ooh a Palm! You must be important! Can I put my number in there?" And that's when you have to say "Hell no you can't touch my Palm." Know what I mean?
 
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