pocket word/internet explorer question

[mikec]

I am new to the world of PPCs. I am thinking of buying an iPAQ 3950/3955 with a keyboard. If anyone could help with the following questions I would appreciate it.

Q1: My main interest in this device is in word processing. I am sick of lugging a laptop around. Even the light ones are heavy and the battery life not that great. I just want a device to enter text and then download that text onto my desktop at a later time. I assume I can do that with a 3950 and a keyboard. Type in the words, save it, hook it up to my desktop, download it....is it really as easy as that? Anything to be aware of?

Q2: With Pocket Word loaded up, how long can I expect a battery to last?

Q3: The 3950 comes with Internet Explorer. Is it a simple matter of hooking it up to a phone jack and away you go? Or do I need some peripheral device to access the internet with the 3950?

Thank you.

[b4lunar]

A1: It's exactly as easy as that. No worries whatsoever.

A2: The keyboard will drain a small portion of your battery life if you use it without pluging it into an AC plug (those keyboards usualy offer that choice). My estimate is that without any sleeve on you'll probably get more than 6-7 hours of operation.

A3: No, these devices do no carry internal modems. If you want to hook to a cable phone jack you'll need a Compact Flash sleeve in order to be able to use a CF modem (really small) or a CF GPRS card (quite expensive though). I would suggest in that case you buy a CF sleeve from iPAQ with an extra battery on it. That will eventualy give you more than 10 hours of operation. Offcourse if you don't want to carry around stuff you can always connect to the internet through a GPRS enabled mobile phone that supports infrared or bluetooth (i think the ipaq you are considering to buy offers both) by putting it next to your PDA. The way i see it there is one more option to connect to the internet, that is through the use of the iPAQ GSM/GPRS sleeve. You actually turn your pda in a mobile GSM smartphone such as Siemens X45, and can connect to the internet anytime with ease. It's a bit bulky though...

Hope these help...