Sense of Adventure

I’ve no idea why I called the post that. My subconscious insisted.

I think I’ve got Comments enabled now. If nothing else I’ve got a trackback showing now from The Friendly Curmudgeon (thanks!), who was kind enough to post my plight on his blog.

Thanks to those who have tried to comment on my post “Oh no,” including Chris Hibbert, who by means of some clever sleuthing managed to turn up my email address and send me a helpful recommendation.

As of right now I’m inclining to go with either the Palm TX or the E2. Another friend and faithful Forum Warrior recommended the Palm Z22. It’s tiny and affordable, but having managed this afternoon not only to handle one but actually turn it on for about two seconds before it died (the clones at CompUSA having naturally failed to recharge their display model, or hook it to a power supply, since who’d actually want to look at the display before buying?) I have to say the 160 x 160 screen is just too small.

The color’s nice, but the thing I use a PDA for most in terms of sheer time is as an ebook reader. My late, and still much lamented, Miss Clié had a 320 x 320 pixel screen, even if it was greyscale. If I boost the onscreen font size to somewhere I can actually read on a 160 x 160, I’m afraid I’ll get like five words a screen.

The TX is very nice if a little long. The E2 is about the same height and width as my Clié but thinner. The TX gets good reviews from Amazon and ZDnet. Chris gives a thumbs-up to the E2. I liked the look and feel of both, but the ones I saw today, natch, wouldn’t turn on. I’m guessing I’d be pretty happy with either display.

The TX is a bit pricey for me right now. The less expensive E2 would no doubt serve me fine. At the same time, since I not only use my PDA as a reader but want to amp up my evangelization for ebook reading, it might be worth it to me in a business way to suck it up, shell out the $100 or so more to go with the 480 x 320 screen on the TX.

I’m still … dithering. I may just say shuck it and get a used Clié off Ammie. I could replace the old one straight-up for about $65, or upgrade to a later, if still outmoded/discontinued (as are all Cliés) model for a hundred bucks. But I also understand that getting a used, hence non-guaranteed, machine might prove tantamount to setting my money on fire.

We shall see.

Next - I attempt to enable permalinks!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 at 6:32 pm and is filed under General, Life, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.