iPaq 3800 series PDAs (3830, 3835, 3850, 3870, 3875)

[Xoc]

I've got two iPaqs in the house: a 3850 and a 3870. The only difference between the two is that the 3870 has Bluetooth. I'll give a review maybe sometime next week, when I get a chance. Overall I'm pretty happy with them.

[Brett_Tabke]

What are the limits of what WinCE can run? (yes, I've looked far and wide, but not been able to find clear cut answer for all the noise)

[Chris_R]

I don't know - I have the 3870 and I like it. I have the GPS pack and I sit it in my car and it says "Turn Right Up Ahead", and reroutes my destination if I miss a turn (automatically).

It integrated very well with Office. I use pocket movies on it and it plays movie trailers great.

I doubt you can run prime 95 on it, access MySQL, and communicate wirelessly all at the same time :)

I have pocket excel on it which I use to store some of the keywords I am targeting. It does pretty much all I need - I just wish there were more bluetooth appliances I could use to really step into total geekdom :)

One of my friends wants me to dual boot it with Linux.

I used to have a Palm V, but as usual - Microsoft has taken someone elses product and made it better. I couldn't use it as the 4Megs of Ram just wouldn't cut my inbox requirements. I did get it for $79 well over a year ago (thanks to a computer input mistake which was honored by the company) - so I can't complain.

I haven't seen anything about limitations, but I doubt it could do too much computer intensive stuff without bogging down.

[Xoc]

Well, put it this way: it runs Quake. Really. With sound. With almost acceptable performance. Single user, of course, though. I use it as a demo. I haven't tweaked the Gamma to be bright enough to really play, or configured the controls.

Applications have to be compiled for the ARM processor in it, but you should be able to get most open source software to work.

It's more capable than a Cray 1 from 20 years ago, I'd hazard to guess, and doesn't require liquid nitrogen to cool it.

If you use the SD card slot, and/or the expansion sleeve that allows PCMCIA (PC Card) devices, you have virtually infinite expandability. IBM has a CF 1-gig hard drive that can go in the expansion sleeve. Toshiba makes a 5 gig PC card drive.

Chris, can you tell us more about the GPS thing: Cost, how it attaches, features, maybe in a separate thread?