Buzz Out Loud Lounge forum: Upgrading to a new smartphone! Comments as to why/why not?

If all you do is basic PDA things like contacts, appointments, todo list, & email. It really doesnt' matter what smartphone you use and the Blackberry is good at that.

If you want to expand your PDA abilities to other things like mapping, eBooks, MP3 Player, Video and the hundreds of other things they can do, then a Palm or Pocket PC based smartphone makes a lot more sence. Since you like palm and since palm isn't broke there isnt' a problem with the direction you are heading.

The only one I'd avoid in that latter case is Symbian. They have implemented some kind of validation before a program can be run and that would rule out the vast majority of the kinds of applications that I use on my PDA that make it helpful.

There are smart phones in Pocket PC and Palm that use a stylus. My wife has the same critera. It rules out some well rated phones but it's hard to be that way of entering data.

Both palm and pocket pc have apps for easy syncing with your computer. Not a problem.

Palm perhaps doesn't have as good of a native solution for Word docs, but they do have solutions (take a look if the Cleavview suite does Palm) for viewign and probably editing as well.

You seem to know what you want, just start looking at the devices and see what filters out. Don't rule out Pocket PC smart phones and limit your options until you are ready to make the choice.

There are not a lot of smart phones that meet your criteria. Once you find them you will probably have an easy decision as to which one is the one.

I have a Palm Centro through Sprint. Best $99 I ever spent.
A few minor bugs, but nothing to write home about.

If you're in the market for a smart phone and can wait a few months, some exciting developments are coming:

- $49 smart phones will be available by the end of the year in the U.S. (speculation)
- 3G iPhone
- miscellaneous iPhone imitators (e.g. Samsung Instinct) coming soon.