HP Jornada 525

I didn't intend buying a Pocket PC as I already had a pretty well spec'd laptop, though at times lugging around a bag weighing in at about 4Kg was a bit of a pain. I happened to walk past Dixons and noticed that they'd reduced the HP 525 by £100 to £199.99, seemed like a pretty good deal and not a massive amount to spend, so I splashed out. Turns out to be one of the best purchases I ever made. I couldv'e got the 548 from PC World for £300 but didn't see the point in paying the extra just for a bit more memory and a USB port connection. And the colour of the 525 matches my car!!

The HP uses the windows CE OS, which I personally prefer to the other PDA OS's, familiarity I suppose. It comes with MS Activesync to connect to your desktop and a copy of MS Outlook 2000, though I already had this installed. Once connected the Pocket PC syncronises with Outlook on the PC, downloading your contacs, tasks, calendar entries etc. In addition, the Windows CE handwriting recognition software doesn't require you to learn a whole new way of writing as it recognises normal characters.

I can honestly say that since I got the HP, I've become terribly organised, in fact I've not missed a meeting all week. Unusual for me.