Thursday, September 30, 2004

So now what?

l spent about a half-hour last night at Office Depot looking at the Palm T3. Now l am as desperately confused as ever! I have 3 major observations about the device:

First, that screen is an absolute work of art! It is bright, clear, and nicely sized. It can make even the smallest font render beautifully! I really think I would like the whole slider concept...I don't think you need the full resolution all of the time. Score one for Palm!

Second, data entry on Palm devices is sub-standard (except for devices with built in keyboards of course). I used Graffiti for years, but now l don't Know how I survived it. The one letter at a time madness is enough to kill a person! Transcriber on the Pocket PC is way better. Having to hammer out one letter at a time (as compared to writing in my native cursive script) may be a show stopper. Score one for Pocket PC.

Third, the version of Documents To Go that comes on the T3 doesn't do it for me. The functionality of Excel is even more limited than Pocket Excel on the Pocket PC and Word has less functionality than WordPad on your PC. Sure, you can upgrade to the next version and get the functionality that I want for a mere $30, but I could also buy Textmaker for a PPC device during their next sale. Score no points for either platform for lousy Office interoperability (how many millions of people want to have the same functionality I am looking for?).

So, the score is 1 to 1. I am going to continue to think publicly though. To be continued…

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