Anyone here have a PDA cell phone?

coasterqueen wrote: My employer has given me the okay to look into getting myself and my boss a PDA phone so I can be more accessible. I pushed for it because I'm always having to send emails and it would be nice to have something on me to do that every where I go, even on weekends.

ANYWAYS, I'm asking because several of our members have Palm Treo's or Blackberry's. We were convinced to go with the Treo, but DH is trying to get me to go with a Cingular Wireless 8525 exclusive. I'm trying to decide which one to go with because these phones are around $500 a piece. I know I will love whichever one I get because I'll have computer access 24/7 and that's a HUGE benefit for me , but my boss is a bit more skeptical and I want to make sure I get him one he'd like - although we have to go with the same kind.

SO...if you got this far, if you have a PDA can you tell me what brand you have and the positives and negatives about it from your point of view? Thank you.

gr33n3y3z replied: the Blackberry's are much nicer

coasterqueen replied:
Can you elaborate?

lisar replied: My aunt has the Nextel Blackberry. She loves it. She neve has any problems with it.

luvbug00 replied: Lars has a blackberry and he loves it. he said it's easy and fast for him to check mail and respond.

Our Lil' Family replied: DH has a Treo and when we did have the internet on it it was not as fast as you are used to on a PC. The speed is in between dial up and high speed....but closer to dial up. I didn't like using the internet on his phone, everything was condensed in size and I'd rather just wait and use the real thing. JMO

As for the phone part it's pretty good...takes getting used to putting it on your ear right to hear the person you are talking too. Unless we just haven't figured it out yet, you can't have downloaded ring tones. I sent over a tone to his phone but we can't figure out how to apply it to the ring tones, but it's very possible that we just don't know what we are doing!

The PDA part of it is nice. DH has several medical books on there and he hasn't used much of the expansion card so it holds quite a bit of memory.

gr33n3y3z replied: the Blackberry's are more user friendly sorry I was in a rush this morning LOL

moped replied: All the execs here have Blackberrys - they seem to like, I have never heard any complaints other than when they go to remote field areas and don't get great reception - but all in all I think they are great!

But I don't have one myself.

coasterqueen replied:
This is my concern. There have been numerous times our members who have blackberrys are down because of network issues, etc. The ones with Treos haven't had this issue.

coasterqueen replied:
Yeah, they have new ones out called the "3G" that are supposed to be very fast. I would mainly use it for email, but I would have to use it to access files, word docs, etc.

Calimama replied: DH has the Blackberry 8700g. He loves it. Very user friendly, fast loading,clear picture, it's never been down, in fact he gets reception in places I don't. He's rough on his phone and it's been holding up great.

jem0622 replied: I have a Treo. Hate it. Necessarily evil. I know people who love the Blackberry. That wasn't an option for me. You have limitations on what you can do in your MS Office Apps.

coasterqueen replied:
Can you tell me why you hate it?

My boss just gave me the ok to get the Treos seconds ago and I'm afraid to take the plunge in getting it without hearing more about the negatives from people.

TIA.

coasterqueen replied: Thank you everyone for your advice on the phones. I went last night and tried out the Blackberry's, some others as well as the Treos AND I decided on the Treo. I really do like it. The only thing I don't like is I can't use my remote desktop access software on it and I'm not having any luck finding a comparable program to run on it so I can access my work computer from the treo and do various things.

There is a huge learning curve on this thing, but I'm getting there already. I have til Tuesday to learn the entire in's and out's on it so I can tell my boss and he'll decide whether he wants one or not.

Thank goodness my employer pays for this thing - it was expensive . Highway robbery.

It is definitely nice being able to access emails anywhere I go. I know most people that would be a bad thing for them, but for me I'd prefer it that way.

Calimama replied:
I'm glad you got one you like! I still don't know how to use DH's Blackberry.