I'm looking to get a PDA and am probably going for an ipaq 3870 because it has bluetooth built in. I want to use my home broadband connection to surf on the PDA when I'm elsewhere in the house.

 

Does anyone who knows about these things have any comment on whether this is a good choice or whether there are alternatives I should be considering ? They all seem pretty similar from what I've seen.

 

And does anyone know a good cheap source of PDAs - plus a bluetooth adaptor for my home PC ?

 

Thanks as always

 

Dave

PDA?

 

This wireless networking?

 

Try www.scan.co.uk, I know they do stuff like that. I was gonna get some wireless networking but the max speed is only 11MBITS

If we wanna get techy here the clockrate may be 11Mbit but the actual data rate of wireless (802.11b) is much less than 10Mbit wired connections because the frames are much smaller and therefore have a higher overhead. Plus it gets worse when you add the encryption or VPN as wireless without either is a pretty serious security chasm. I did some basic testing on wireless and it came out as about 5Mbit I think. Normally with 10Mbit wired you can expect to get above 90% of the theoretical max throughput or pretty much 100% if it's full duplex.

 

Anyway, that's nowt to do with bluetooth.

 

What I do know is that a number of the wireless PCMCIA adaptors work in an IPaq (with a PCMCIA expansion jacket), so you could just stick a card in and connect up a wirless LAN hub to your home network. I have a Buffalo AirStation which seems to work OK.

I bought my 3850 a month ago from these guys

http://www.clove.co.uk

 

who seemed to have the best prices anywhere (I did a lot of searching on price comparisons, dabs, currys, etc etc etc)

 

I also found this lot who do refurbished ones (but didn't buy - too scared so I bought 100% new)

http://www.totalpda.co.uk/index.asp

 

AndyPs' right - for wireless use around the home, you should be looking at 802.11b ('Wi-Fi') not bluetooth. Bluetooth has a much more limited range (just a few metres).

 

I've got a D-Link USB adapter in my desktop and a PCMCIA card in my laptop and can surf via Internet Connection Sharing on the desktop with my laptop at the end of the garden.

 

Got this stuff from www.netshop.co.uk Cost for both adapters was total £149.11 inc VAT

 

Give the guys at Clove a ring - they took about three long and rambling phone calls from me and gave lots of advice.

 

Last month, they thought the 3850 (ie the one you want but without bluetooth) was the bees whatsits.

 

HTH - Gio

 

[This message has been edited by Gio (edited 02-09-2002).]

I've got a 3870 and bought a bluetooth adapter for the PC to use my broadband connection anywhere within 100m.

It's one of these: http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=BT3030

It works by synchronising through bluetooth so your mail etc is sent straight to it when it arrives on your PC and uses the passthrough feature to give you internet access.

Expansys just sell PDA/Mobile stuff and seem pretty good to deal with.

 

Might be worth considering one of these new Fujitsu LOOX instead of the Compaq. http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=FSLOOX

Twice the speed processor at 400MHz as against 206MHz. The equivalent new Compaq 3970 is nearly £200 more expensive.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

ChrisC - how do you find range around the house ? Any problem going through walls etc ?

 

Cheers !

I've got a Toshiba E 740 with built in Wi-Fi. It works around our offices using D-Link 802.11b 11Mbps access points

Dave, I've had no problems at all with range.

Works first time, every time.

I don't exactly live in a house that's 100m square though!

 

I quite often annoy the Mrs by lighting up the bedroom with the backlight and a bright blue flashing bluetooth LED whilst browsing the forum and chatting on MSN in the middle of the night!

 

Very sad but if you knew her you would realise there's nothing else to do in bed

 

I work from home (I.T) and it's very handy at times. Also means you can leave it on charge anywhere in the house without having to use the USB cradle on the PC and still keep it sync'd.

 

The bluetooth dongle also alows you to sync a mobile phone like my Ericsson T68 with the PC or iPAQ. You can connect via any combination of ports on the devices - eg. connect the iPAQ through to a COM or LPT port on the PC to use a modem/printer.

 

Cheers Chris. I've gone for exactly the same combination. Ordered the dongle and it arrived at my home (in south Wales) from Manchester in 18 hours !

 

Had a quick attempt to connect via bluetooth this morning and got the handheld and laptop communicating but not fully working. Will have another play tonight.

 

Great toys !

 

Dave

Us Z owners are not used to service like that... send it back and ask for it to be re-delivered in 3 months time!

 

I tried to ring and complain that the service was too good and they scared the life out of me by answering the phone.