High End "Enterprise PDA" Purchasing Guide for LSPs:

Recommendations for Fourth Quarter, FY 2008

Specifications effective April 1, 2008

Purchasing Considerations

For the past three years, smartphone sales have been far outstripping sales of other handheld devices. We see this trend continuing, especially with regard to the enterprise PDA market. There are currently very few manufacturers of traditional "enterprise PDAs" left on the market, so choice is limited. If your users want an internet connected device, ISC recommends steering them towards a smartphone rather than a WiFi connected PDA. While there are additional data costs associated with smartphones, the availability of internet anywhere makes this cost worthwhile in many situations.

The "enterprise PDA" class devices are primarily geared towards business uses including email, limited editing of documents (for Palm, for Windows Mobile), and full synchronization with a desktop workstation or "desktop-equivalent" laptop. These devices tend to include network connectivity in the form of WiFi (802.11) and/or Bluetooth to allow retrieval of email and limited web-browsing while not tethered to a traditional computer.

Recommended Devices

These are not the only enterprise class handhelds available on the market, but we feel that they represent the best in class at this time. We do not recommend any other Palm OS handheld except the T|X, but Windows Mobile users can have some additional flexibility in their choices. If the iPaq listed below does not suit your needs, be sure to at least purchase a device running the latest edition of Windows Mobile 6.

Palm OS	Windows Mobile
Palm T|X	HP iPaq 211
This is the only Palm OS Wi-Fi enabled handheld that will authenticate against Penn's AirPennNet wireless network.	The large screen, expansion options, Wi-Fi and Windows Mobile 6 Classic OS make this a good choice for the enterprise PDA space.

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Page maintained by Robert L. DeSilets, Jr.
updated May 6, 2008
Next update as needed