In college, managing your time and getting organized always seems to be an uphill battle. Pocket planners seem to be the most best way to get organized, but should you stick with the traditional paper version or join the millions going the electronic route?
Personal digital assistants, or PDAs, haven't always been so popular. Early units were too expensive, heavy and annoying to use for everyone but gadget geeks or rich guys itching to get the latest toy.
Today, PDAs are sleeker, easier to use and much more affordable. It's no surprise, then, that college students now comprise one of the fastest growing markets for them.
The advantages of a PDA are obvious: they're smaller, lighter and customizable to your needs. Built-in search functions mean no more messy scrawled sticky notes, forgotten appointments, or lost phone numbers.
I was able to get my hands on four popular PDAs on the market today: the Palm IIIc, Handspring Visor Deluxe, Casio Cassiopeia EM-500 and VTech Helio. All four offer the basic functions one expects of a PDA: calendar/appointment book, phone book, to-do list, calculator, backlit screen and clock. They also offer synchronization with your PC, which allows you to backup your data and exchange information between PC and PDA. You can input data via either built-in handwriting recognition software or tapping the pen-like stylus on the on-screen keyboard.
One of the most important considerations for a PDA is its operating system. Palm's is by far the most popular operating system on the market today, with an intuitive, easy-to-use system that runs thousands of free downloadable programs. Microsoft has its own operating system in Pocket PC, a stripped down version of Windows. Pocket PC PDAs can have fancier features like MP3 playback as well as "lite" versions of popular programs like Word and Excel. These extra features tend to come at a price, however, as these PDAs tend to be the most expensive.
With these thoughts in mind and a week's worth of life to organize, I set out to test the units.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.