PDA Price Points: $300 - $600
Top of the line handhelds
- Palm Treo 600/650
- Dell Axim X50
- Asus A620 Pocket PC
- Blackberry 7230
- HP iPAQ
Handhelds in this price range bring you all the gadget options available. Every major player in handhelds brings you a device, even if only entry level, starting at $300. If you're looking for a Pocket PC iPaq, Asus and Dell have models with gorgeous 3.5" 65K color displays at 240x320 and some even have built-in cameras. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth are standard options and the Palm brings its Treo Smart Phones to this price range with real-time instant messaging, email and web browsing. 64 to 128 megs of RAM with SD and CF slots are also standard features in this price range.
If a RIM Blackberry is more your speed, the Blackberry 7230 retails in this price range and like the Treo will have rebate offers consumers can take advantage of when they activate GMS/GRPS services. Blackberry 7230 operates on tri-band 900/1800/1900 wireless networks and allows international roaming between North America, Europe and the Asian Pacific. With Blackberry's available browsers you can browse the web on its 240x160 resolution screen that supports 65K colors.
$450- $600
Asus A730Palm LifeDrive
Dell Axim X50v
iPAQ hx
Archos AV
The $500 to $600 range is truly the upper end for handhelds. This category pushes the limits of today's technology and makes any gadget freak's heart race with joy. But this price range seems dedicated to those handhelds that operate as multimedia super-machines in miniature. Some have built-in micro-hard drives giving them capacities from 4 to 6 GB.
The Archos AV700 is a device that's not quite a handheld but a portable media machine available with a whopping 100-gig hard drive. The Archos AV700 can perform the functions of a handheld organizer while giving you access to hundreds of audio/video recordings. LCD transflective displays in this range are up to 4" in size and display 65K colors, and some models (like Asus A730) present up to 640x480 resolutions.
The pocket PCs will have processors in the upper end of this category, like the Intel PXA270 processor. 624MHz Bluetooth and wi-fi support is a common connectivity option. Absent are Smart Phones and GMS network devices. This range tends to be designed for media super machines with large, bright, liquid clear displays and playback libraries of MP3s and MPEG-recorded TV shows and movies.