Since it looks like new iPods won’t be available until January 2007, I started thinking about getting a Palm that would act as a PDA (currently I have a Palm m515), but could also store some songs and have wifi access to the internet. The Palm TX fits the bill pretty nicely with 128 MB of RAM and a SD card slot. I could get a 1 GB SD card for $29 which would hold 250 songs or about 20 CD’s. I still think the ideal device would be a wifi PDA with a big hard drive that could play movies on a screen larger than an iPod’s. I started putting together a timeline like I did with the iPod to get a picture of the upgrade schedule. The TX was introduced last October, so it is already kind of old. I started thinking that maybe Palm would introduce an upgraded model this October. So I still may end up waiting (not a big deal since both my iPod and Palm work fine right now). I thought briefly about a Blackberry which combines a phone and PDA, but I don’t mind carrying a phone and PDA (though the TX is larger than the m515).
Mar 1996: USR Pilot 1000 (128 kb)
USR Pilot 5000 (512 kb)
Mar 1997: PalmPilot Professional
Palm Personal Edition
Mar 1998: Palm III (2 MB, $400)
Feb 1999: Palm IIIx (expandable, 4 MB)
Palm V (thin, 2 MB)
May 1999: Palm VII (wireless)
Jul 1999: Palm IIIe (2 MB)
Oct 1999: Palm Vx (8 MB)
IIIe Special Edition
Feb 2000: Palm IIIc (8 MB, color)
Palm IIIxe (8 MB, expandable)
Jun 2000: Ted gets Palm V at work
Aug 2000: Palm VIIx
Palm m100 (2 MB)
Sep 2000: Ted gets Handspring Visor at work (8 MB, expandable)
Mar 2001: Palm m500 (8 MB, SD slot)
Palm m505 (color, SD slot)
Sep 2001: Palm m125
Nov 2001: Ted buys Palm Vx
Jan 2002: Palm i705 (wireless)
Mar 2002: Palm m130 (color)
m515 (16 MB)
Oct 2002: Zire (2MB, no backlight, $99)
Tungsten T (16 MB, collapsible, hi-res, $499)
Feb 2003: Tungsten W (wireless)
Apr 2003: Tungsten C (wifi)
Zire 71 (16 MB, hi-res, color, 0.3 MP camera)
Jul 2003: Tungsten T2 (32 MB, $399)
Oct 2003: Tungsten E (32 MB, $199)
Tungsten T3 (64 MB, 320×480, $399)
Zire 21 (8 MB, $99)
Nov 2003: Treo 600 (phone, camera)
Apr 2004: Zire 72 (32 MB, bluetooth, 1.2 MB camera)
Zire 31 (16 MB, color, SD)
Oct 2004: Tungsten T5 (256 MB, $399)
Treo 650
Mar 2005: Ted inherits m515 at work
Apr 2005: Tungsten E2 (32 MB, hi-res, $249)
May 2005: LifeDrive (4 GB hard drive, bluetooth, wifi)
Oct 2005: Palm TX (128 MB, wifi, bluetooth, 320×480, $299)
Zire Z22 (32 MB, color, $99)
Jan 2006: Treo 700w (Windows mobile)
Sep 2006: Treo 750
Oct 2006: Treo 680; Ted gets Palm TX