Buying a PDA-1: Operating System

Do you travel a lot? Can't do without access to your mail and a browser when you are on the road? Well, then this blog is for you. This one is dedicated to covering all types of mobile computing devices and to helping you make informed choices about the gadgets you buy. We begin our series of posts with PDAs or personal digital assistants. Over the next few days, I will tell you everything you need to know about buying a PDA. Welcome to the world of everywhere computing.

In many ways a PDA is a miniature PC and as with a PC the choice of operating system is very important in your overall experience.

The two main operating systems on PDAs are Palm Mobile by Palm Source and Windows Mobile by Microsoft. Traditionally Palm was more common on low-end devices compared to Windows but this distinction has blurred in recent years.

Some important differences remain however: Palm Mobile, found mostly on Palm’s own PDAs, is generally considered easier to use and comes with a lot more third-party software. There are also thousands of shareware programs that you can download including games and utilities. However if you want to create and edit documents compatible with MS Office you may need third-party software.

Windows Mobile, as you might expect, looks like a smaller version of the desktop Windows operating system and is more complex to operate than Palm. Unlike Palm you can keep more than one program running at a time though only one will appear on the screen. The big advantage of Windows is greater compatibility with Microsoft software and the OS comes with smaller versions of familiar Windows programs like Outlook, Office and Windows Media Player.

Next post: Design

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PDA | Windows Mobile | Palm