Linux PDA with wifi?

[Mark]

Ian Stephen ian at tradeswest.ca wrote Sun Jun 1 05:54:23 CEST 2008
>On May 31, 2008, Mike wrote:
>> If I wanted a PDA the runs linux and has wifi, and gets good battery
>> life, any suggestions?
>
>I've got a Nokia N800.  Much less expensive than the N810, but 810 has some
>things 800 doesn't.
>
>Battery life is from 1 day to 1 week or so depending on how I'm using it.
>Wifi reception is the best of any device I've used.
>2 SD slots that are SDHC compatible so plenty of storage.
>Fits a jacket or shirt pocket just fine.
>
>I use GPE calendar, todo, timesheet; camera, gnumeric and Maemopad+ daily.
>PDF viewer occasionally.  Am very happy with it.  Look forward to getting a
>bluetooth keyboard (perhaps iFrog).
>
>One regret is that I didn't put a screen protector on right away.  Now has a
>scratchy feeling place on screen where I write the most.  Oh, and the
>hand-writing recognition works much better for me than Palm's Grafitti 2
>does.
>
>One gotcha to watch for is that Maemopad+ db main table data is lost if the
>device battery runs out with the application open.  In my case I was able to
>recover the db with data from its backup table using a cli sqlite3 client.
>
>IanS

Actually, I believe the N800 to be far superior to the N810. The N800
has two full-size SD card slots compared with the single mini-SD slot
the N810 has. From what I hear the built-in GPS of the N810 isn't very
sensitive, but even if it were it would be dependent on where you hold
the unit, as opposed to the inexpensive bluetooth GPS receiver that I
have for my N800 that is *extremely* sensitive and can be placed for
optimum reception regardless of where the tablet is. The camera on the
N800 swivels 270 degrees, whereas the N810's is fixed. The only real
advantage the N810 has is the built-in keyboard, but a bluetooth
keyboard (or small USB keyboard) solves that issue (and may be better
because of easier typing and more keys). The only other thing the N810
has that the N800 doesn't (aside from more than double the price) is
an ambient light sensor, which is not a big deal to me.

I can't recommend the InvisibleShield screen protectors enough. I have
never before seen a product so completely fulfill its hype. In
addition to being inexpensive, they are also "permanent", in the sense
that they don't wear out and have to be replaced. Mine looks exactly
the same as the day I installed it.

Mark