I just bought a second had Sony Clie sj30 PDA and I am definitely hooked on it!
Synched with my Outlook programme I can cross over all contact details (names, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses and appointments). So the info in my laptop is now in my PDA, hence in my pocket/purse.
There are so many times when inspiration hits and you find you have nothing to write it down on, or even if you do you somehow lose that piece of paper. No more!
And in a book shop when you want to record the details of a publisher? Straight into the PDA!
Whilst I love the PDA I do admit that it being white with a white leather case is a little 'nursy' looking, and is going to be tough to keep clean and white...but it was a good deal for a second hand PDA.
One of my earliest wants in the PDA search was an HP Jornada 720. It was like a baby baby laptop, and it was beautiful, but it was beyond my budget. When I was in an IT Mall I saw a second hand one and asked to look at it. I wasn't interested in buying it I just wanted to see how the screen looked and to see what it was like to type on. The screen wasn't that great and it was a nightmare to type on. They keyboard was so tiny that I could barely use it. That was really great because now I no longer wanted one! Prior to that I was torn between longing for a Jornada 720 and wanting a sj20 like my son's.
The sj30 (and the sj20) have 16 MB of memory. Even a 120,000 word manuscript only takes up 4 MB on the laptop, so we are talking a serious amount of storage space here.
If you want a PDA, and you (like me) can't afford (or justify) buying a new one, look into getting a second hand Sony Clie sj20 or sj30. The sj20 is monochrome, with a white backlight which gives great clarity, it has a high resolution screen, and it is a really good PDA.
Total mobility and the chance to record all those inspirations, poems, phrases. I am sold on the value of a PDA for a writer.
