Handhelds Buying Guide

Don't be mystified by jargon or fooled by hype. Our comprehensive Buying Guides help you choose the right products.

What you need to know, from the kind of user you are to current technologies:

HOW CAN I HAVE FUN WITH THIS THING?

As long as you can stomach the geek stigma attached to playing with a handheld, there are a lot of ways to stay entertained with a PDA.

Games | Digital photos | Music and movies | E-books

Games

There's a huge library of games for both Palm and Windows Mobile 2003 devices, from basic puzzle and word contests to first-person shooters and real-time strategy titles. Sporting a high-resolution, landscape-oriented screen and an analogue direction pad, Tapwave's Zodiac handhelds are designed specifically with gamers in mind. We'll plug Download.com one last time here as a good source for further information on software.

The addictive Jawbreaker game

Digital photos

More and more PDAs today have built-in digital cameras so that you can take snapshots on the fly. Typically, handhelds have 1.2- or 1.3-megapixel VGA cameras; you won't get the same image quality as with a dedicated digital camera, but they're good if you want to take a quick shot to email to family or friends. Even without a camera, you can transfer files from your PC and convert your handheld into a portable electronic photo album.

Today, more PDAs, such as the Zire 72, sport integrated cameras for on-the-go snapshots, but don't expect the same quality as digital cameras

Music and movies

Load up a memory card with tunes and plug in headphones -- you've turned your organiser into an MP3 player. If you have the Plus Digital Media Enhancement for your Windows XP machine, you can load your home videos on to your Pocket PC device to watch anytime. Palm OS, too, supports applications such as Kinoma Video Player to let you watch videos you've downloaded to the device. One note: not all Palm OS handhelds have digital audio and video players, so if having multimedia capabilities is important to you, make sure the PDA has audio/video support before purchasing.

E-books

Both Palm and Windows Mobile support e-book readers. Reading on the screen of a PDA is naturally a different experience from reading a paperback, but a good story can pull you in, no matter what the format. You should also take a look at services such as AvantGo, which delivers Web sites to your handheld or your smart phone for free. Each time you sync, AvantGo will load the latest version of your favourite Web sites such as BBC News or the Guardian.