Digital Organizer

In late seventies and until early nineties, I used simple diaries for managing my office activities and personal data. These diaries were the most unorganized organizers. My jottings were continuous without any labels or breaks. The entries were not made on relevant dates. The jottings were translated into reports at the earliest possible and filed in my office cabinets. Effectively, the diaries were used as just note pads. I never used my diaries after reports were created. It would be difficult to search anyway. I was always referring to the office files. One more use of my diary was telephone index. That was most useful. I became more organized with my data, only after I purchased and used a digital (or electronic) organizer. The Digital Organizer has seen many improvements over the time and now it is known as PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). This is also disappearing as a separate device, as it is integrated into cell phone. Let us see the digital organizers (or PDA's) I used and still using.

Sharp ZQ-700

The first digital organizer I bought was Sharp ZQ-700. It was purchased in mid 90's. The features of this organizer are given below:

• It has a metallic robust hard case. I add the word "robust", since the device had been dropped many times and still working fine.
• It was made in China and was purchased cheap compared to Japanese products. There was no compromise on quality.
• It has a mono-chrome display with grey foreground and black fonts. The display window size is 10 cm x 4 cm. It is wide enough to read memos without much scrolling.
• It has a back-lit light (cyan color) and the organizer can be used even under poor light.
• It has all the functions of a modern PDA like calendar, to-do lists, scheduler, birthday/anniversary, note pad. Scheduler, calendar and to-do are inter-linked. There is no reminder function or audible alarm.
• It has 1000 Kb memory. It had one of the highest memory sizes available at that time. I never exceeded 25% of memory usage in 13 years, The memos created were transferred to desktop at the earliest and deleted from the organizer. So, the low usage of the memory.
  
• My personal data, ids and passwords were stored in memo section with security activated. This section of my organizer was the most used other than memo section and address book.
  
• It has a communication cable and software to communicate with PC for a back-up. I often synchronized my organizer with my desktop. This was most useful in copying the notes created on tour to my desktop. It prevented retyping of my notes.
  
• It has main battery and back-up battery. When the main battery loses the power, the back-up battery provides power temporarily without loss of data. I changed main batteries twice in 13 years. I never lost data.

It is still useful in keeping my old and current personal data. I do not carry around now a days due to size.

Palm Tungsten T

This got added to my arsenal few months. This was a gift. This got a boot from my friend after the purchase of a new cell phones with all features. You click here to find technical features of this device.

• This PDA is loaded with Palm basic software only. It does not have any third party software like photo viewer that came bundled in a CD. The CD is missing. I have to buy them, if I need. I am just mulling over.
  
• I have used voice recorder. It seems to be fine.
• The most advanced features compared to my Sharp Organizer are
• The colorful and crisp display.
• Doing away with two thumb operation of the keyboard.
• Use of Graffiti to type the message. I have already mastered in using Graffiti.
• Touch sensor display
• Handy size
• More options for connectivity, like Bluetooth. I am yet to test Bluetooth.
• Mutimedia expansion slot. This slot has a 64 Mb card already installed
• USB cable for connecting to my desktop.
  

In general, it has more features and handy compared to Sharp ZQ-700, I owned. I have updated my current data in this device and I am using this extensively now. This is my present companion while going out.

Sony Ericsson T610


This is the latest addition. No need to say that it was also a gift. At present, I am using this as a cell phone only. I do not see major advantage to my Palm Tungsten T as an organizer as of now. As days pass, I may use cell phone as an organizer to avoid carrying two devices. The major hurdle would be creating big memos in T610.

The key pad use would be cumbersome. Please click here to see the features of this device.

My impressions are:

• The display is very good and crispy.
• The case is robust.
• A lot of features for online activities. I have not tries since I am yet to decide whether to go in for a GPRS connection.
• Camera is not that great when you compare the present day phones.
• Sound quality is good.
• I tried Bluetooth connection with my PC. It works great. I transferred some pictures to test.

Summary

I have now three organizers. My prime organizer is Palm Tungsten T as of now. This may change in future to Sony Ericsson T610. Though all three are old, they are alive and kicking. I use all the three. One for old records, one for current data and notes and the last mainly for address book.