Ok I need my hand held in picking a hand held device.
Which Brand do you use? Is one brand better than another?

I want something with wireless capabilities to connect to our wireless G router /network at work. WiFi?? BlueTooth??

Palm or HP??
We use lotus notes also at work, would be nice to get my emails too.

What about talking to PLC's anyone heard of handhelds that can do that yet? I know some of you are D/L to/from your Cnc's...(i am guessing Basic or DOS??)

I need to do typical word doc's, but pictures would be nice to see also. Would be even better to surf the net if possible? what are the limits with something like web surfing?

I am so confused, can someone shed a little light on these devices for me

:drowning:

you're asking for pretty much everything, so i think the main contenders are blackberry or treo (palm). both are email, web (crappy & slow albeit as its throught the cellar network) and phones. come to think of it, I'm not sure if you can get just the email without the phone.

the blackberry has 'push' technology on the email - a big advantage if you have real time email conversations. both are wireless, phone, blue tooth, infra red. The has a nicer interface and 1000's of palm apps.

I don't believe you can work off you network, access is through the cellular phone network, but i wouldn't swear to this. The treo is not a windows operatings system, but comes with apps that let you work with excel, word docs etc. I've the new treo and have been happy, although people complain its not as stable (needs reseting frequently) as the blackberry

First off, what is your budget? PDAs can be very pricey. Built-in WIFI starts at $400+ Canadian.

I just bought a Palm T|X which ran me $450 (tax included, Canadian $). It has 312MHz, 128MB (100MB available for storage) Mem with an SD expantion slot, 320x420 resolution with 16bit color, built-in WIFI, BlueTooth, etc. plus loads of software. Check Palm's site for details.

I also looked at HP's HX1950 model. Same price as the Palm T|X, however lower specs. Again a 300MHz but with only 36MB available mem for storage. To equal the T|X you'll need a HP HX2410 which has about the same memory and a 520MHz processor, also its $125 Canadian more.

For me the Palm is a clear choice as there is a lot more software avaliable and you get more performance for the dollar.

Try Dell, they're great.

As mentioned earlier, check out the Dell Axum's Some of our maintenance people are using them to get their Notes email, surfing the internet, checking their scheduled maintenance from a server on the network. The screens are decent. Right now we don't have a good sync for the Notes calendar or VPN connection (software version problems).

Good Luck

as a side note what can these devices do to help with CNCs. Is there some design software for them? compunication software? anything of the sort?

I think that they can hold g-codes. And some can transfer g-code to DNC machines, where there is sort of a memory function. Correct me if I'm wrong.
:)