What exactly is a PDA?

Question

I know that a PDA is a Personal Data Assistant, but what features does it have? I am a college student, and I hate lugging my laptop on the train and on long trips. My big thing is, will I be able to write and save essays and send big papers (reports) to myself (via e-mail) to be printed out? I need to know how it works. HELP!

Answer 1

A PDA stands for Personal Digital Assistant, and in essence, the idea behind it is to organize your daily life by keeping contact records, calendar, To-Do lists, and take notes. However, these handheld have evolved in the last few years, and continue to evolve to the point that you can take Word, Excel, PowerPoint documents and edit, delete, and even create new ones directly on your handheld; you can also surf the Web and check your e-mail using WiFi hotspots and/or Bluetooth connectivity; furthermore, you can do other cool and productive things such as balance your books, use the handheld as an mp3 player to play your music, play games, and even watch DVDs all with additional software that is inexpensive.

While there is no handheld that is a true laptop replacement (partly because handhelds tend to be a lot slower than laptops), there are some units that come pretty close:

Palm Tungsten T/X
http://www.palm.com/us/products/handhelds/tx/

Palm Tungsten LifeDrive
http://www.palm.com/us/products/mobilemanagers/lifedrive/

Both offer similar features, including built-in WiFi, gorgeous large screen, SD card slot for expansion purposes, and easy-to-use Palm operating system. However, the LifeDrive also has a 4 GB hard drive, which allows you to store things such as your class notes, photos, videos, even your DVDs (I currently have 13 full movies on my LifeDrive, and can still add about 7 more). The LifeDrive also has a built-in voice recorder, which is pretty good, so you can record your class sessions.

You can print directly from the handhelds, or (for those handhelds that can go online) you can e-mail the files to your desktop, and print from there.

Again, keep in mind that the handheld will tend to be slower than laptops, but it may come in handy often. I would recommend that you purchase a wireless keyboard so you can type your notes in class (or wherever), as well as an SD card (1 GB would be a good size).

Cost: The Tungsten T/X costs about $299, while the LifeDrive costs $399. You may find slightly lower prices in your area depending on specials and discounts. A wireless keyboard for the Palm would cost about $90, and a 1 GB SD card would cost about $30 (but you may get a mail-in rebate that can lower the price by as much as 50% on the card).

Overall score (1 out of 10 total points): I would rate the LifeDrive as a solid 8 out of 10 points.

Good luck in your decision, and good luck in school!

Answer 2

After Eddie's comment, there is not much I can say.

I am a long term Palm user. I use a T5 and it is the reason I don't lug around a laptop. Now the drawback is that it does not have built-in wi-fi.

The TX and LD solve that, though with the TX you lose the space and jump drive capability. For a lot of people, it is well worth it.

I am telling you from experience, getting a PDA would enhance your educational experience. There are few things you can do on a laptop that you can't do on the right kind of PDA. I wrote papers, scheduled appointments, played games, and more while listening to mp3s. With wi-fi, you can email stuff to yourself (or professor).

With the right software, you can even print out papers directly from the PDA. I was able to do it with a compatible bluetooth printer.

Heck, I even replaced my entire, huge notecard collection with an electronic utility. Since I had Word, Excel and PowerPoint on my device, I literally did everything from my PDA. You can too.

Best wishes.

Answer 3

A Personal Digital Assistant. It's like a computer but smaller and more cool.

Answer 4

I know that you can write memos and notes, however I don't know if you can write full essays. You probably can. PDAs can be tricky to write on though. you can't exactly type on them.

Answer 5

lol at first I thought you meant, PDA=public display of affection and I was like are you freaking kidding me but anyways here's a couple of sitse for how pda's work:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/pda.htm

http://faculty.seattlecolleges.com/pwilkins/ebooks/

Answer 6

You can try Palm (http://www.palm.com/us/products/compare ). If you want to know the functions, they have a very good guide (http://www.palm.com/us/products/basics/functions ). You should be able to do get plenty of things done on them.

Answer 7

its a calendar that helps you keep track of stuff you have to do. Its Got a few other things. But its not all that great.