iPaq 5550 update
Having provided a first-time user review here, I thought I should add some extra info. Basically, after extremely intensive use for over a month, my opinions are remarkably similar: it is a great gadget, with an excellent form factor, excellent ‘horsepower’, but continuing ‘brittleness’ if you spend a lot of time ‘network hopping’, turning power off and on a lot in between networks, and shutting down ‘less than gracefully’– on the other hand it is very easy to develop a cooperative modus operandi so you don’t get surprised by such situations.
I’ve switched my default calendar/task software to Pocket Informant, which beats the pants off the lacklustre stuff that is shipped with the Pocket PC (Windows Mobile 2003 version). Highly recommended.
The TomTom navigator software is also remarkable-but-slightly-brittle. The hardware GPS receiver completely died on me, but the headquarters in The Netherlands were extremely helpful, and shipped me a new unit within a few days (on the other hand, the new unit is acting up too, so I’ll have to go back to them again, which is starting to worry me). The software is great, but you have to know when to trust the GPS directions and when not to, e.g. in tricky or traffic-laden situations, or if the map is not 100% up-to-date (most of the maps are extremely accurate, just not 100%, hence the need for some judgement.
