Gaming Pda

[icurafu]

Hello everybody!

I have to get a PDA for work, because I've moved to a new job and I've realised that I need to organise myself a lot better.

Because I try to add gaming to nearly all parts of my life, I'd like a geeky PDA that I can play games on.

The problem is, is that my company is very professional. Everyone wears suits and has a tidy desk and use such words as raincheck and proactive.

Anyway, that makes the Zodiac a bad choice, unless I wanted to make a statement, which I don't, cause I'm new. My questions is.... what would be a good PDA for gaming and other geeky activities without making me look out of place? I usally buy these things 2nd hand, but this time I need a receipt to claim it as a tax deduction.

I was looking at a few sharp linux bases pdas but they all have terrible battery life.

The x51v's are way to expensive, and the new x51v seems to have problems with the latest version of windows CE. I also couldn't find many games that used the 3D card on it. Also the battery life is only a couple of hours of gameplay.

This led me to the HP iPAQ hx4700. This seems beutiful. I love everything about it, it's fast graphics processing and long battery life; all this in a 4" VGA screen weighing only 186g. But if you look close, it doesn't have a d-pad, using a touchpad instead. Well, that sucks for games, so I would need a wireless keyboard or a wireless gamepad.

I'm also a big fan of acer, but the only vga models have not reached Australia yet. A310, A300 or A311. I'd be happy to import it, but can't find it overseas except in bulgaria, where I might have a communication problem.

Can someone help me out with some advice... Whats a good PDA, and where should I buy it. Also looking to get a wireless keyboard and gamepad. I know the zodiac is the obvious answer, as they are cheap now, but I can't....

 

[Angel]

well. first of all if you need to look professional then a wireless gaming pad is probably not going to be the best thing, especially since you obviously cannot hold both at the same time.

If you want something that is a couple years old, but gets the job done, i can highly recommend the PDA that I own.

Compaq IPAQ 3835. It has 64mb ram, 206mhz strong arm processor, windows mobile 2002. It has a d pad which makes NES emulation very easy to play. But best of all, it also makes commercial games easy to play, especially shoot em ups.

Emulation wise, don't expect to much, with any PDA, from what i can tell, except for palm products, pocket pc emulators are pretty much no longer updated and they all pretty much suck, except for Morphgear, but you have to pay for that. Even overclocking my Ipaq to 237mhz, i cannot get any better NES emulation than with frameskip 2 w/sound. Its pathetic.

But Commercial games are a different story and it can easily play Playstation 1 caliber commercial games. If you like space shooters, i'd recommend Antheleon, its fantastic. Also, Ancient Evil is very good, its alot like Diablo.

Its a very good little PDA, it has good battery life, it has a D-pad, the screen is great, and has all the functionality of pocket interent explorer, word, excel, as well as Windows media player and an e-book reader. It has an SD slot for extra storage and an expansion port at the bottom for like hooking to a keyboard docking station.

I hope this helps you. For what its worth, if you looking for something for gaming, NON EMULATION GAMING, this machine may be good for you, especially in the pocket book area.

 

[icurafu]

well. first of all if you need to look professional then a wireless gaming pad is probably not going to be the best thing, especially since you obviously cannot hold both at the same time.

If you want something that is a couple years old, but gets the job done, i can highly recommend the PDA that I own.

Compaq IPAQ 3835. It has 64mb ram, 206mhz strong arm processor, windows mobile 2002. It has a d pad which makes NES emulation very easy to play. But best of all, it also makes commercial games easy to play, especially shoot em ups.

Emulation wise, don't expect to much, with any PDA, from what i can tell, except for palm products, pocket pc emulators are pretty much no longer updated and they all pretty much suck, except for Morphgear, but you have to pay for that. Even overclocking my Ipaq to 237mhz, i cannot get any better NES emulation than with frameskip 2 w/sound. Its pathetic.

But Commercial games are a different story and it can easily play Playstation 1 caliber commercial games. If you like space shooters, i'd recommend Antheleon, its fantastic. Also, Ancient Evil is very good, its alot like Diablo.

Its a very good little PDA, it has good battery life, it has a D-pad, the screen is great, and has all the functionality of pocket interent explorer, word, excel, as well as Windows media player and an e-book reader. It has an SD slot for extra storage and an expansion port at the bottom for like hooking to a keyboard docking station.

I hope this helps you. For what its worth, if you looking for something for gaming, NON EMULATION GAMING, this machine may be good for you, especially in the pocket book area.

Thanks, the 3835 seems great, but I'd like something new and shiny, cause I've had experiance with buying 2nd hand mobile phones that die quickly, due to the lithium battery. I'm a big fan of the strongarm CPUs, so I'm hoping to get on of the 400mhz ones. I think acer has it in their latest model.

I think I'd like to play style type games on it mostly. Like ScummVM, and a few of the PDA games available. Maybe a good dpad isn't that important after all. I'll just play the emulators on the GP2X for now.

If I got a wireless gamepad, it would be for my own use, and certainly wouldn't follow me to work.

I just looked up ancient evil and it look great as well. That's my kind of game, and I'll certainly get a copy when I get my PDA.

I'll keep researching, it seems to me that not much has happened in the last year. I mean over a year ago, the axim x50v came out, and nothing is more powerful then it yet. And the axim prices seem the same if not a little more for the x51v. I wanted a x51v because of the 3D abilities, but after a lot of looking, I can't find much that takes adventage of it. It's even slower then the x30 on the PS1 emulator.

 

[Angel]

yeah thats why i suggested my pocket pc, you can still get them new, but look at the software and stuff. There's really no reason to spend $400 on a pocket pc now for gaming. There's really nothing to use all the power, yes you'd have perfect emulation regardless of the unoptimized code, but my strong arm 206mhz can run about 90% of the commercial games out there, even the 3-d ones.

EDIT: by the way, check out www.pdarcade.com

 

[moz]

i like my zodiac is a pda, emulation machine music player, video player and my GPS.
goes well with my wireless lan and keyboard.

and oh btw im a manager at a place that we use words like "proactive"......... and i wear a suit gasp horror!

so what was the reason you didnt want a zodiac again?

 

[icurafu]

It'll just look out of place. Maybe I'm being safe, but I don't like the idea of whipping out my zodiac after a meeting to look for a good time to meet again.

I'm a big Zodiac fan as well.

I'm looking at a new viewsonic v37 which I can get very cheap.

 

[Nintendo]

Tapwave Zodiac 2 pwns SONY PSP!

 

[icurafu]

If anyones interested I got the HP hx4700 for $560 Australian dollars including postage and insurance.


http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/hp_ipa...ocket_pc_review