I just bought a ....WTH???

must control impulse, must must must...

"Ok, I'll take it." I'll probably regret those words

I'm down at the Source warehouse again, groan. Wandering around with nothing really in mind to purchase. I picked up a cordless phone and vivitar webcams (2 for $8US) as presents for others.
At the cash I spied a box and said "lemme see that, please". WTH? Why so cheap? Are all the goodies there? I opened the box, everything was there. So I uttered the above words.

Salesguy jaw dropped to the floor. He set it at the cash for himself hoping nobody would notice it. He was going to buy it at the end of his shift. He had already charged it and made sure all the goodies were there.

So what was it this time I couldn't resist?

A Tungsten W. Argh. I bought a Palm. Shoot me now. Like I don't have enough on my plate toywise. Well, I have been wanting a phone for a long time but I don't like MS smartphones or HP pda phone thingies.

*banging own head on table*

PS. No time yet to disect the 4gb MD units I have. Maybe this weekend if I don't buy more junk I have to figure out.....

PPS. Is this thing any good as a phone? Should I have taken a free phone with plan deal instead? Like a Blackberry orTreo or something? Only BB I ever saw bored me, black and white. No MP3 or video either IIRC. My email is *not* that important to me. So I guess that answers that.

At least this thing is a PDA, sorta. Am I gonna regret not returning this thing? I've got till Jan 5/06.

Well, just be glad I'm not gonna n00b out and ask how to hack hpc apps to work

I pity the poor folks at Brighthand that are gonna have to field my inane questions.

Edited by wallythacker 2005-12-01 6:41 PM

Consider yourself well and truely SHOT

LOL, I don't think I can face myself in the mirror for a few days...

What model Palm? I think you said Tungsten...

It's a Tungsten "W", pda and phone combo. I guess I mainly bought it for the phone part and figure the pda part is a bonus. I looked at camera phones awhile back and didn't feel I'd ever use the camera part. PDA is more useful to me. So far it's pretty cool, tho' I've only played with it a miniscule amount.

I just discovered I can get it on my folks family plan for a reasonable amount so I'm happy. Don't know if I'll bother with a data plan, unless they get really cheap soon.

Oh yeah, $75US. Did I get hosed or is this about par for this model?

mm, it wasn't a bad price.

(well i would have bought it for ... 1$ and then quickly sell it. i can't stand palmos )

For $75 I think I would have bought it too. For test reasons only then through it away… after thorough use.

$75 US is a great price. They're going for $200+ here in SoCal. I got my Zire 31 for $80 and I thought that was a good price. And no, I'm not ashamed to say I own Palm OS devices as well. They both have their good points. (Anyway, I'm an even bigger gadget collector than you are, wallythacker.) I admit, though, that the H/PCs get most of my attention these days.

CE Geek, you got me there! You've more gadgets.

I should add, shaking the box down thoroughly revealed a palm sd wifi card. bonus. Explains why salesd00d was unhappy I bought the kit.

This isn't a machine I plan to learn much or try hacking to any degree or even adding much software. If it synchs up to my Outhouse and keeps my PIM , good enough. Er, maybe I'll add some card games and Mapopolis in case I have time to kill somewhere or need directions.

Hehee, sounds like me lately. Finding way too many goodies for stupidly low prices for my own good. I just picked up a Creative Labs Zen Micro 5GB jukebox this week. I wasn't even looking for a jukebox (usually just play MP3's on my PDA or HPC). But it was only $100 US (floor model marked down), and it was a "Limited Edition" unit that came with two Li-pol batteries instead of one, a cheap plastic stand/beltclip and a little felt pouch, along with the usual USB cable and crappy headphones. No box, manuals or software CD's, but that's what the Internet is for. It also was missing the AC adapter, but it runs and charges off USB power. The AC adapter is simply a 5V brick wired to a USB mini-B plug. I use a powered hub and the USB cable to run/charge the thing.

I've already filled it up with MP3's of every CD I own, and still have 1GB to spare for a data partition. You can mark off part of the HD space for data storage and use the thing as a USB hard disk. Problem is you have to dedicate a pre-specified amount of space - 128, 256, 512MB, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 or 4.0 GB - and files in that space can't be used for MP3 playback. (Too bad the MP780 doesn't have a USB port. *sighs*) I figure if nothing else, it's a 4GB USB drive for $100 instead of $150 or so...

Last week, it was digital camera gear. I got a Kodak DX7590 (5.0 Megapixel, 10x optical zoom) for $90 US. Again, a floor model that had everything except the plastic door to hold the battery in place. [Fixed with electrical tape at first, and eventually a replacement door I ordered for $8 plus shipping.] It even had a 512MB SD card in it, that wasn't supposed to be there. Then proceeded to drop $100 US on the Printer Dock for printing out 4x6" photos right from the camera, as well as transfering to/from the camera and charging the camera battery. Sweet little photo rig for $200 US...

Anyway, sometimes I wonder what is worse: The salespeople who mark floor models that are otherwise perfectly good down to rediculously low prices, or me for not being able to resist the challenge of getting spiffy tech stuff I don't need for cheap and fixing it up. But hey, I did pass up the $200 Ipod 20GB....now if I can resist the $300 miniDV camcorder with the built-in 20GB Hard drive.... help me.......make the voices stop......

PS: Yes, I *did* almost immediately dismantle the MP3 player in order to pull the 5GB drive and try it in my HPC. No joy - the device was recognized as a mass storage device but I kept getting Track 0 errors when trying to format or read/write it. It did work fine in my desktop CF reader, though... I wonder if there are filesystem limits in CE 2.11 that would cause a 5GB drive to be a problem. I did format it on my desktop Win XP box to be FAT32 before trying it in the MobilePro.

Oh, you got some sweet deals there. You're obviously a sharp-eyed bargain hunter like me. There's a Creative like yours where I shop but so far no joy in getting them to reduce it enough. Give me time to work on them.

Weird about the microdrive. I'm thinking I may have the same issues after I remove my drive from the thumbdrive housing.

I love the salesfolk for the deals and hate them for it. Although, I'd spend the money one way or another, so I may as well have the gadgets to show for it.

Happy Hunting!

geez a palm wifi card.............. that retails for 120$!

oh well too familiar! and i made a friend of mine crazy too... ordering two wibooks soon if everything works out.. he wanted one and then told me i can have another...



no, 5 gb should be ok for ce 2.11... a plain 5 gb pcmcia hdd works just fine i heard...

Edited by cmonex 2005-12-02 2:31 AM

and i am the biggest gadget collector...

14 HPC's (11 here, 3 on their way, and probably 3 more)

non hpc stuff: three psions, 3a, and two 5mx clones (but one of them for sale!!), a ppc (for sale as well! ive had it for a few weeks now and never intended to keep it.), hp 95lx, then a hp 200lx (this one isn't mine, but ive been offered it, and if i pay 100$ it is mine.), nokia 9000 (dead, needs new battery)... mmm and a psion hc-100, lol.

so when i get those three hpc's i'll have to stop. fortunately a few of them are gifts.

Admittedly, I got lucky again with the wifi card bonus. I'm sorry the sales guy didn't salt the box with a big Sd card while he was prepping it for himself.

When I got my Fuji A340 for $75US it had a new 256mb XCard in the box, sales guy saw it and said "it's your lucky day." The box came from a locked cabinet.

But btrimmers Kodak deal is incredible. IIRC, a Zeiss lens to boot. So nice to have.

Oh well, my A340 was so cheap it'll live in my pocket or something like that. You know how you're always wishing you had a camera for that special moment....

Hey, brtimmer, if you get that 20gb mini DV even cheaper then decide you don't want it .....