Review: Add-ons for your new PDA

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by Cameron Crouch

(IDG) -- Santa came through this year and got you the hippest electronic stocking stuffer: a new personal digital assistant. Now, you're ready to check out what it can do.

Popular Palm, Handspring Visor, Sony Clie, and Microsoft Pocket PC PDAs all come with basic personal information management applications--a calendar, address book, to-do list, memo pad, and support for desktop e-mail, usually from Microsoft Outlook. Pocket PCs also have downsized versions of Word, Excel, and the Windows Media Player.

While these applications will certainly keep you busy, countless other utilities, games, and add-on accessories can make your new handheld even more productive and fun--if you know where to find them.

Sites such as Handango, PalmGear, and PalmTracker offer searchable databases of downloadable goodies, including lots of freeware or trialware. Palm and Handspring Web sites also offer buying guides for software and add-ons.

For the holidays, Microsoft has added a holiday gift guide site with information about peripherals, software, and content for Pocket PCs. Palm's customer service center has extended its hours for the holidays. It also launched Knowledge Finder, a new interactive tool with answers to customers' most frequently asked questions, says David de Valk, director of Palm customer service. You can access Knowledge Finder by whatever method you want to use: Web site, chat via the Web, e-mail, or telephone.

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Some of the best PDA software lets you take your favorite reading materials with you. And if you don't have a wireless connection to download content on the fly, AvantGo is a must-have tool. It's especially handy for those who'd like to dispense with a bulky book or newspaper during long public transportation commutes.

Although AvantGo also works on wireless devices, its synchronized service provides timely Web content to nonwireless devices. Just download the free AvantGo client and its companion MobileLink app, and choose the channels you want at AvantGo.com. Each channel has content from sites such as Yahoo, Salon, New York Times, Weather.com, and even PCWorld.com. That material is downloaded via your Internet-connected desktop and then updated on your Palm, Visor, or Pocket PC whenever you synchronize using your desktop cradle. (With Pocket PCs, AvantGo's client is built into the browser, so you don't even have to download it.)

While AvantGo offers general content, JunglePort and Vindigo are among a growing group of free location-specific applications for Palm-based PDAs. Junglesoft combines a city guide with vector-based maps to help you find the restaurant, hotel, or other location you've just read about. Vindigo offers directions and recommendations.

You can also use your Palm or Pocket PC to read books. Pocket PCs come with Microsoft Reader e-book software; Palm owners must download a third-party e-book app such as Peanut Reader, MobiPocket Reader, AportisDoc Reader, or Express Reader Pro.

Utilities proliferate on PDAs

Pocket PCs handle Word documents out of the box, but you can add this capability to Palm devices. The latest version of DataViz's Documents to Go ($39.95) lets you read and edit Word and Excel files on your Palm OS-based device. While you can't create new documents on the PDA, here's a work-around: Create blank ones on the PC, and access and edit them on the handheld after you synchronize.

PalmGear.com president Kenny West says a new application called WordSmith "offers full-blown Word for the Palm with formatting and fonts." Smith also recommends QuickOffice 5.0, a $39.95 Documents to Go competitor that includes QuickSheet, QuickChart, and QuickWord.

For Palm-based printing, check out PrintBoy, also on PalmGear.com. This $14.99 utility lets you print from your Palm on certain printers, including Epson and Ricoh models and Hewlett-Packard DeskJets.

Utilities a-plenty

According to PalmGear.com, some of the more popular free downloads for the Palm platform include the BigClock alarm-clock utility, Launcher III application launcher and organizer, DiddleBug sticky-note tool, HandyShopper shopping-list aid, and FireViewer image and video viewer. Another useful tool, HackMaster, creates a platform for a range of other utilities that change the Palm interface or add new capabilities--larger fonts, for example.

If you're willing to pay a little for added functionality, CIC's QuickNotes and BugMe ($20 each) both let you scribble notes with a stylus right onto the screen of your Palm. Of course, the Palm M100's built-in notepad tool already does this.

PalmGear.com's West says he can't live without the $24.95 DateBk4, an advanced replacement for the Palm datebook, to-do, and memo applications.

Pocket PC utilities are scarcer than Palm programs, but there are a few good ones. Ruxon's MSN Messenger client lets you send and receive instant messages whenever your handheld is online. Pocket Informant is a PIM tool. Another utility, Jimmy Software's $9.99 JS Landscape, lets Cassiopeia owners run applications in landscape view.

Many Pocket PC applications focus on multimedia and games, says Ed Suwanjinder, product manager in Microsoft's Mobile Devices division. He recommends Pharos' image editor and viewer. Stargazers should check out The Sky, a Pocket PC application that provides details about the constellations and where in the sky you can find them.

Palm-size gaming

A host of free and low-priced games for Palms and Pocket PCs make for great time-killers when you're in a doctor's waiting room or at a boring conference. For Palms, games like PacMan, Pocket Chess, and Froggy recall classic board and arcade games. Other favorites include Zap!2000, a throwback to early '80s-style arcade fun, and Dope Wars, a New York City theme game involving the purchase and sale (hopefully for profit) of virtual controlled substances.

A new version of Zap!2000 called Zap!2016 takes advantage of the 65,000 colors on the new Visor Prism, Smith says. "It blows away the experience of playing it on the Palm IIIC," which has a 256-color display.

Fiction bills its new game, Race Fever, as the first 3D racing game specifically designed for the Palm platform. Multimedia games for Pocket PCs include CeCraft's IGolf, an interactive 3-D game with several preloaded courses. It's on sale for $16.95 at Handango.

Not all PDA games are free downloads. Some Pocket PC games come on preloaded CompactFlash cards, and a few Visor games come on Springboard modules that slide into the rear of the device much like a little GameBoy cartridge. Pocket Express bundles Tetris, Lode Runner, PocketChess, Poker, Solitaire, and others into one module for $39.95, says John Hurst, manager of developer relations at Handspring. Handspring even has a $39.95 GameFace that puts a joystick on top of the Visor faceplate and controls.

According to West, two of the most popular Springboard content modules are Franklin Electronics' King James Bible and Merriam Webster Dictionary, which has more than 300,000 definitions. You can also get e-book Springboard modules, including the Lonely Planet's $49.95 CitySync.

You can grow your PDA with hardware add-ons

The Stowaway keyboard, from Think Outside, is one of the hardware accessories available for Palm handhelds

Hardware add-ons abound for Palms, Pocket PCs, and especially Handspring Visors. Handspring has made some strides to get its modules into brick-and-mortar stores, but, like PDA software, hardware accessories are more readily available on the Web. You'll find most at PDA vendor sites, PDA portals like Handango.com and PalmGear.com, and some online electronics retailers.

Popular add-on categories include storage, input, connectivity, and entertainment. Also available or coming soon are a host of global positioning system add-ons for location-based services.

Extra memory is particularly useful for large applications that you only need occasionally; you can store them on the memory add-on instead of in the device itself. Pocket PCs boost capacity through CompactFlash cards or, in the case of the Cassiopeia EM-500, MultiMedia cards. Handspring offers 8MB backup and memory modules, and Sony's Clie accepts Memory Sticks.

If you're not into handwritten text input (via Graffiti for Palm-based PDAs or Jot for Pocket PCs), several keyboard add-ons let you enter data the old fashioned way--by typing. One of the most popular, Think Outside's Stowaway keyboard, is available from Palm.com for Palm handhelds. Visor and Pocket PC owners can nab a Targus keyboard, which goes for about $88 at online retailers such as Amazon.com.

Both Handspring and Palm offer digital camera add-ons for taking and viewing pictures. The $100 Kodak PalmPix snaps onto the back of a Palm; IDEO's $146 EyeModule, a digital camera for the Visor, fits into the Springboard slot. EyeModule owners can also download new EyeContact software. It lets you take a picture of a person, then associate it with that individual's entry in your address book--handy if you're the type who can't easily link names with faces.

Make a wireless connection

Wireless and connectivity add-ons can truly expand the capability of a PDA, but you do have to pay air-time fees that typically run about $30 or $40 a month. While Nextel offers a CompactFlash modem that fits most Pocket PCs, some modems are designed for specific devices such as Compaq's IPaq and HP's Jornada Pocket PCs.

Besides the wireless Palm VII, Palm's main wireless add-on is the OmniSky service for Palm V, which includes a Novatel modem. You can also get a Mobile Connectivity Kit that lets you use your mobile phone as a wireless modem for the Palm. Check out Palm's add-on site for more choices.

Handspring users have more wireless choices. Three services use the Novatel Minstrel S module: OmniSky, GoAmerica, and YadaYada. Glenayre offers a messaging module, and the $299 VisorPhone turns the Visor into a Global System for Mobile Communications-compatible phone.

"Handspring's wireless modem services are easier to set up than the Palm service because you don't have to install software," Hurst says.

For musical entertainment, you can choose between two MP3 player modules for the Visor--the $269 SoundsGood MP3 Audio Player, and InnoGear's MiniJam, which comes in $199 32MB and $259 64MB versions. The main difference is that the MiniJam has removable memory. Although Pocket PCs can play MP3s out of the box thanks to the Windows Media Player, Boosteroo has a nice Audio Amplifier add-on for Pocket PCs that offloads the amplification of music to save battery life. It also has three audio output jacks so you can listen to tunes with a couple of friends, Suwanjinder says.

Software and hardware add-ons let you use your PDA as a compass, a camera, an MP3 player, and even a game console. The versatility makes PDAs feel more and more like super-small PCs. Let's just hope they don't crash as much.

USB, OS X ahead for Palm in 2001
December 19, 2000
Add-on modules lure users to PDA demos
November 15, 2000
Handspring introduces color version of Visor
October 17, 2000
Talk to your Handspring with VisorPhone
September 29, 2000
Palm announces cell phone add-on
September 26, 2000

Smells like teen (PDA) spirit
(PCWorld.com)
Palm launches MyPalm portal
(IDG.net)
FileMaker migrates to Palm
(Macworld)
Samsung phone, Bluetooth in Palm's future
(IDG.net)
PDA phones deliver all-in-one convenience
(PCWorld.com)
Wireless: What to do?
(The Industry Standard)
Wearable PC goes to work
(InfoWorld.com)
PDAs at 30 paces
(Computerworld)

Palm
Handspring Visor
Pocket PC

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