Palm Vx Palmtop 8MB

I bought a Palm Vx Palmtop 8MB two years ago from an eBay seller in California. It didn't cost a lot for an unused item and it has been quite useful.

I use the PDA as a diary and contact list and not too much more. I know it does more and there are addons to make it into a phone, satnav device and so on but I can't see the point really. It is a diary and contacts list and that's what I need. It has 8Mb of memory and that is plenty. It is fairly basic and the screen is mono but that helps with battery life. It interfaces flawlessly with my PC with the cradle connected through a converter cable into a USB port.

I have an external keyboard for the PDA which is handy if you need to take notes at a meeting or something like that. You can type with the stylus or use the grafitti handwriting recognition but I can't see the latter as more than a gimmick. I have tried it but can't get it to work well for me. Generally I just use the stylus to type.

I have found sources of software for the machine and have downloaded a sudoku program to interest my wife who is addicted to them but I haven't installed it yet. We'll see.

If you want a basic PDA for not too much money there are plenty of these going on eBay for under £20 second hand or a bit more unused. If you have no serial ports a converter will cost another £12 or so.

All in all this is quite a good piece of kit.