John,

>We're doing a furious evaluation of PalmOS vs CE as we speak.

Just a quick question...have you considered Psion devices? (I am not exactly sure of the context, whether this is for personal use or a commercial endeavor). I would assume from seeing the UK flag by your name that you have certainly heard of the company *grin*... The Psion Revo is a fabulous device that IMHO makes the question of whether to go Palm or CE rather like discussing the merits of a Pinto vs an Escort while already driving a Jaguar...only the Jaguar doesn't cost any more than the other two!

My main beef with Palm-type machines and the iPaq is lack of a keyboard. Since I hunt and peck at a furious pace, the keyboard on my Revo probably gives me 30-40 words per minute once I get going. I have heard of some interesting Palm addons that can offer faster entry, or of course the addition of an actual keyboard, but I don't like carrying around more than one thing -- carrying around an extra keyboard is out of the question for me...

>However, the handspring has far more extension support than any of the CE devices, or Palm. There are now medical textbook cards and a whole host of cool things at reasonable prices, with more all the time. Handspring feels like a winner to me.

The Visor's add-on slot is _very_ intriguing. You can't beat a hardware solution for a lot of today's needs, like MP3 playing, cell phone stuff, etc.

>I've been looking at development tools myself. PalmOS still wins hands down for rapid app development; there are MS tools for CE but they require a horribly familiar "service pack" sort of preparation, updating and re-registering OS files. IMHO it feels like another round of dll Hell. There are also other tools such as VisualCE and JDesignerPro and we're going to try those as well.

I believe that Psion (or Symbian) offers the SDK for Psion devices free of charge, but it is not the easiest thing to start using. Psion devices also come with (or can use as a download) the OPL programming environment.

Anyway, just wondering what your thoughts on Psion handhelds was... Have a great weekend!

JoeK