Can you help me decide between (used) PDA's, Smartphones, Pocket PCs and the year 2008?

BTW, you can assign a date/priority/category to a given todo entry from within the todo's - you just can't drag and drop it into calendar iirc. http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesTip/Looking-to-Your-Palm-for-Your-To-Do-List.id-1096,subcat-HANDHELD.html Here's also some GTD tips using only the standard palm software http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1873

Fantastic!

Just an update in case any of you return to look at this thread: I spent the past two days (not counting one on which I was at an out of town seminar) searching EVERYWHERE for my husband's installation cd-rom, since the clie PEG nx70v has a "unique" desktop unavailable from sony or palm and then found everything I needed via http://www.sonyclie.org/forums/index.php?act=idx and am now set up and trying out various apps recommended by many of you. The clie, even as is, was indispensible at my seminar ... it turned out that I was called upon to be a speaker and, with the clie (using the basic apps before getting the installation cd), I was able to make some notes, reference earlier speakers and walk up to the podium with my clie in hand --- giving a grand speech that afterward found me surrounded by people asking me to join their organizations and work with them on related projects. Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone!!! I'll post again in a few days, just to offer anything helpful that I've learned, to anyone in future who may need this thread, and to assign "best answers". I hope your weeks go as well as you've ensured that mine will.

krisjohn: It took me a moment, cuz I've had GREAT success in buying almost all of our minor electronics second hand ... but you know, I don't think I've bought anything at that had a nonstandard battery ... except cell phones, since my teens used to lose them monthly so we began buying used in bulk and just saying "look in the phone box!" when they'd lose the next one lol! ... but isn't that amazing ... nothing else with a nonstandard battery. That's good advice. Thanks! hexatron: okay, so that does indeed sound annoying but even better ... I haven't seen that edit ability mentioned anywhere in the manual or ondevice demo ... thanks for that!

Nickerbocker: You said "truth be told, there hasn't been any leaps in technology as far as PIMs go over the past few years. Although newer models may have stronger search features or something." and finding this out from you guys has been a major relief for me, insofar as not feeling like I'm gonna be working with a chisel and stone while the rest of the world has ballpoints. Thanks for sharing your ppc experience, too ... I think my biggest strength here is that I'll be using it only for pim stuff ... and the aforementioned games that I usually carry in the little $14 versions anyhow. I am a horrendously disorganized person in my personal life, and the more I read the manual, the comments here and the links, the more I get the real feeling that this is going to change that for me, and with far more ease than I ever expected it could. As I sit typing this, there is a 2 foot pile of paper scraps behind me, on the floor, where I've just dumped it while looking for something within a drawer. Next to me, in a backpack are 3 or 4 appointment books and notebooks of different types. Nothing in this whole paragraph has worked for me, so I have always been pretty envious of you who do not have the 2 foot pile of scrap papers looming! And the thought of entering appts in a cell phone, and then in a notebook, or remembering to do either ... it just doesn't happen in my life. One item, electronically flexible ... that sounds good. Maybe not as good as your boss has it, but good till I get my own staff ... someday ... The key, I think, is that the Clie recognized my handwriting 100%, which was really surprising - cuz only family can usually read it lol; and that for speed, it has that virtual feature, where I can write in cursive and draw sketches or whatever at real speed and then save it with a category and name and it's all fully legible. Those two softwares I found, I'd never seen before when searching for GTD stuff for my pc. My husband has already been properly thanked :) for having this quality thing lying around. With the info I've followed through this forum today ... I'm getting happier and happier what I have here :)

ArkhanJG: Omigosh, thank you for giving all that time and energy to answer so much. I really, really appreciate it. Also, the only other pda ad I'd answered was for a Tungsten E2, so it looks like I had picked the right ones to investigate :). What you said: "I always get collared for jobs away from my desk, so it's very handy to be add then right into my main todo list so I don't forget them. Having my notes with me all the time also rocks. They do also support minor editing of documents and spreadsheets on the fly using pocket office" is EXACTLY what I was hoping I could do competently for work purposes. I'll bear in mind the screen res info, too; I just gave up on finding the original cd for syncing, so will have to wait till I download drivers in order to view docs/spreadsheet. For what's on it already, tho, res is excellent. As for the rest of your first answer, yes, I'm happy to do the rest of all that on the laptop till I choose some all-in-one answer ...by then we may have laptops the size of a 3x5 card, with virtual keyboards and virtual monitors ... *that* would be well worth waiting for :), wouldn't it??? As for bejeweled 2 -- lol -- I like the other games in that set, too ... um, alchemy and collapse. An backgammon or an animated jigsaw puzzle would be cool, too ... but I'm just glad you didn't suggest a roleplay, arcade or shootemup game ... I will check out the drag and drop software that you mentioned ... I mentioned finding multitask earlier ; I've found a second product (http://www.olivebr.com/pilot.htm) that interests me, too, because it allows the user to drag and drop and mix "the way you want. For example, you could put an Address and a Datebook entry together, or mix Expense, Memo Pad and To Do entries". For GTD, those might actually be the only two softwares that I need. Wouldn't it be amazing if it were that easy??? And thank you for the other softwares/platforms/learning links ... Again, the wealth of help here is awesome from you guys, filling in all the gaps I missed in my own searching.

It's annoying, but isn't 'annoying' what the A in PDA stands for? Assistant, I believe

I have a Clie SJ22 (very ancient). It doesn't do drag&drop, but it (and, I believe, all PalmOS devices) do cut and paste. Draw a / on the character-scribble area and you get a little menu with the usual Edit icons (and Beam, too). It's annoying, but isn't 'annoying' what the A in PDA stands for?

The best gadget is usually the one you already have. You shouldn't have any problems doing what you want with the Clie. But a word of advice. Don't buy secondhand portable gadgets. The batteries are almost always screwed. Unless they take standard sizes like AA and AAA.