Basic PDAs

Cheaper PDAs are hard to find

If you don't want to spend more than $200 on a PDA, you might ultimately be better off with a smartphone; many are available for less than $200. Budget PDAs are now hard to find.

The Palm Z22 (*Est. $100) is the least expensive handheld on the market, but it's now hard to find. Palm representatives told us that more would be available, but right now, the Z22 is out of stock pretty much everywhere.

If you can find one, experts say the Palm Z22 is a great basic organizer. The Palm Z22 won't do anything fancy like connect to a wireless network or play MP3s, but at PC Magazine, editors say it performs basic functions perfectly. Reviewer Sascha Segan writes that the Palm Z22 is "a PDA pared down to its essence."

The Palm Z22 is small and light at 3.4 ounces, with a 2.8-inch, 160-by-160-pixel color LCD; because the screen isn't that big, text and images are crisp at this lower resolution. The Palm Z22 comes with a 200 MHz processor -- plenty of punch for reading Word and Excel documents, managing appointments and contacts and viewing photos. You get 32 MB of memory (20 MB available for your files) -- and that storage is non-volatile flash memory, which means your data is safe even if the battery runs down. Pricier handhelds let you expand memory with a memory card, but the Palm Z22 doesn't have this option. PC Magazine's Sascha Segan concludes, "The Z22 is a simple, easy-to-use device for non-techies who want to stay organized, play a few games, and read a few e-books." The Palm Z22 can interface with a PC or Mac computer.

If you can afford a little more oomph and want to be able to expand your PDA's memory, Palm offers the Tungsten E2 (*Est. $190). Unlike the Palm Z22, the E2 is still widely available in stores. The E2 has a larger 3.2-inch, 320-by-320-pixel color display, compared to the Palm Z22's 160-by-160-pixel screen. Again, you only get 32 MB of memory, but the Tungsten E2 has an SD card slot for adding more storage. The slot also accommodates a Wi-Fi expansion card offered by Palm as an accessory. You can sync the Tungsten E2 PDA with either a PC or a Mac using the included USB cradle, and you can send data to compatible devices over Bluetooth. The Tungsten E2 and Palm Z22 both use Graffiti handwriting recognition for data entry.

The Palm Tungsten E2 PDA's software bundle includes a video viewer (Kinoma), and reviews say video and MP3 playback are good, but if you really want to watch videos on your handheld, you'll want something faster than the Tungsten E2's 200 MHz processor.