Does a D1 need a PDA cell phone?

You're going to get mixed answers when it comes to whether or not you need a PDA. I got one thinking I would use it for scheduling my patients, but pen and paper was always so much faster for me. Especially when I'm pressed for time in the clinic.

As far as phones are concerned, If you're interested in an AT&T Tilt, I'll sell you mine.

 

The true answer is no, you don't need it.

But if you're looking for a reason to get the iPhone or the new Blackberry Storm, then yes, you absolutely need it! At minimum, you'll need to know when the buses and trains come by, and there are applications that give you up to the minute status on public transportation. In the clinic, you can store an electronic drug reference chart, organize your patient schedule, etc. In fact, not having an iPhone or Blackberry Storm means that you'll be providing substandard clinical care! It's your ethical responsibility to get yourself one this Xmas!

 

I like the way your mind works! lol.


OP, you don't need one, but if you WANT one, then I guess it's a good time to get one. either that, or sign a 1 yr contract instead of 2 if you need one next year (cooler stuff will be out next yr anyways, right? ). I had a pocketpc phone for 2 1/2 yrs & I really liked it. Now I just have the LG Voyager. After a couple weeks I didn't miss my PPC much at all.

 

I told my parents to buy me a blackberry for christmas b/c I "NEED" the Epocrates application for my pharmacology courses....haha.

 

Ah well, when it comes to parents buying things for dental school, you can tell them anything. There's the old shrug your shoulders, "don't look at me! I don't even WANT a new laptop and I don't see why I even need one. But they're making me buy 16gb of RAM, so what can I do?"

 

Short answer, no.

You will need a phone to call patients, text, etc. Other than that, it is really not necessary imo.

Maybe what you are asking about is how we manage our time, or what gadgets we use to manage our time with. Mine is pretty simple. Google spreadsheet for patients, project lists, that type of thing and Google Calendar for managing time. Works pretty well. I have a PDA phone and I really never use it, the screen is too tiny. Just a waste of time when I have my laptop with me.

 

Ya, wait at least until MacWorld next month. They will prolly throw down another update for the iPhone.

 

money wasted....

 

What is a PDA?

 

I have a palm treo, and I love that phone- it's amazing.

Although it was somewhat expensive, it's better than a lot of the other junk on the market now.

 

You must be kidding. Palm treos are some of the most unstable slow phones I have ever used.

 

My palm will beat the blackberry anyday. It depends how much crap you have stored on the phone...

 

Palm doesn't have true push email, the best they have is timed fetching which really drains the battery. Palm doesn't have UMA (call over wifi - good for low signal areas), Palm also doesn't have the ability to sync with google calendar/contacts, Palm's calendar is nice and theres lots of medical applications but other than that nothing positive to me.

Oh and also carrying a treo is like a brick compared to a blackberry.

 

i'm not sure which palm treo you are talking about, perhaps the older models. i have a palm treo 800w and it pretty much has everything that you said was negative above (i have wifi, PC sync, gps, InfraRed, etc.). the treo pro is out now also which is essentially a glorified treo 800w. as with any smartphone, there are tons of 3rd party apps to install which make these phones even better. i have no regrets with the treo 800w and would take it over any blackberry and the extra $30 they tack on for their services. plus i like windows mobile 6.1, its faster or on par to all of my friends' phones that i've used. "carrying a brick?" depends which blackberry model you are talking about but compared to BB phones of similar caliber, it weighs less than the Storm but slightly more than a 8330, and those 3 are of very similar dimensions. unless you can feel the significant difference between 0.4oz and 0.1in. i'd say the small screen is a con, but its not really any smaller/bigger than any of the other smart phones out there now (samsung blackjack, motoQ9, BB 8330). Only phones with bigger screens are those with slide out keyboards(i.e. HTC phones) and full touch screens (i.e. iphone). The blackberry which you seem to prefer has a 312mhz processor compared to the 333mhz processor on the treo 800w. BB8330 screen resolution and screen size are 320x240 @ 2.4in compared to the 800w's 320x320 @ 2.5 screen. something that these phones lack compared to say an iphone is def in the multimedia department...but i have my MP3 player for that.

to the OP, you do not NEED one. it would be NICE to have one to be able to use for all the other daily things in life. living in a big city, i use my GPS, weather, and internet on my phone frequently. i do not have much experience with calendars on many other phones, but the scheduling function on the treo 800w is great for my purposes, both personal and school related. and like some other people have said, the ability to have drug databases at your fingertips is pretty cool. your regular old flip phone probably can't do that!

 

Having wifi isn't the same as having UMA calling ability that I have on my blackberry 8320. UMA allows you to make a call over wifi from any open network with ZERO cell phone reception and not using any 3rd party applications like vonage. This is great for places like the hospital OR. Also my $59.99/month blackberry plan is 1000 anytime minutes, unlimited data, unlimited text messaging, unlimited web, unlimited PUSH email (treos definitely don't have this ability and the 3rd party apps that claim to work for it are trash). You don't have to pay $30 extra for blackberry (only sprint does that). As far as the weight difference not sure where you got your numbers but you are way off. The Treo 800w is 4.94 ounces, the blackberry 8320 is 3.9 ounces. That is a 1.04 ounce difference which equates to your treo being ~25% heavier which is a lot.

Oh and 2 other things Palm Treos do not have which blackberry does is standard 3.5mm headphone jacks (WTF was palm thinking when they didn't include this) and your camera doesn't have a flash (good luck getting any low-light pictures). Those 2 things alone are HUGE downsides if you ask me. But your right your processor is 21mhz faster and your screen resolution is slightly higher. One thing that wasn't discussed above is that blackberry 8320 doens't have GPS like the 8330 (it has UMA instead) so I use google mobile maps with cell phone tower triangulation and this is about equivalent. As far as multimedia Blackberry's multimedia experience the MP3 player is actually pretty nice - I use it all the time.

Personally I'm looking forward to the offical release of the Curve 8900. 512mhz processor, 480x360 display, UMA and GPS

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/devices/blackberrycurve8900/curve_specifications.jsp?navId=H0,C401,S2

 

Where is that 60 dollar plan through?

I'll give it to you, the Curve 8900 is beautiful.

 

Its T-mobile

Blackberry Minutes and Mail Plan

 

in all fairness, i did not know what model you were talking about and i stated clearly in my thread i was comparing the 800w to the 8330 and BB storm. not to the 8320. so your weight differences doesn't apply to my argument in which i compared 2 BB's to the 800w, just not the certain model you had. as for the 3.5 jack, i don't know about the majority of users but i have since switched to bluetooth to avoid cords and would have never used a 3.5mm jack on my phone anyways. To me its like an A: floppy disk drive on computers....took awhile to get away from them but people stopped using them.

i also use google maps mobile (free application btw for everyone) and since the treo 800w has an internal gps chip, i use satellites for position and the internet on the phone provides things like phone #'s and reviews for resturants if that is the thing that i'm looking up directions for. i guess UMA would work in an urban setting but there are deadzones and seems like UMA would not keep your GPS tracking in areas where you would not get cell phone reception. also, i'm on the unlimited sprint SERO plan for $25/month after certain discounts. although not everyone can get that deal, not everyone can get your unlimited $60 plan either. so for $25/month, i can do without push email. i was under the impression that most, if not all cell phone providers required a Blackberry Internet Service (usually around $25-30/month) to be purchased along with the phone if you wanted to use it to its potential. last time i checked this was the case for verizon, t-mobile, rogers, and sprint. if i'm wrong then please forgive me. hope all this discussion is helping the OP! lol.

either way OP, seems like people are happy with their choices so you would probably too.

 

About the Tmobile plan if you buy a voice package then you have to get the add on but you can get a special blackberry plan which bundles minutes and mail to avoid that extra fee.

Just so you know the weight of the Blackberry 8330 is 4.02 ounces which is still .92 ounces less (not .4 as you stated above) than your treo 800w which weighs in at 4.94 ounces. As far as the storm I don't even consider that a true blackberry due to its lack of physical keys so its not a valid comparsion in this argument.

Good job on the SERO plan though. I was on that one for awhile as well with 6pm nights and weekends and the $50 Kellogs rebate , disliked the treo so much I switched to Tmobile for the curve. But granted that was the 755p treo; I know the 800w is much better.

So you listen to MUSIC through bluetooth? Hows the quality with that? I agree that bluetooth has taken over the headset market but as for the Audio market I would have to disagree.

 

as stated, i use my mp3 player for multimedia. the soundcard on any cellphone cannot compare to the ones in MP3 players IMO. plus most phones that i've had experience with had 2.5mm jacks instead of 3.5mm jacks so i guess that would be a selling point of a BB if you so choose to listen to music through that. I know my Palm uses windows media player for music/video files so it would be similar to listening to music/movies on your computer. but if i did listen to music through my bluetooth i'm pretty sure it would sound crappy...not to mention music coming into just one ear!!

as for push email, i was curious as to if my palm 800w had it....in fact it does. any phone with windows mobile 5.0 and above has the capability. It just has to be set up. however, my gmail mobile account is also set up and i receive emails as they come, i just wasn't familiar with the "push email" lingo.

another selling point of the 800w/treo pro is that it has the AIM/MSN/Yahoo chat programs loaded onto the phone and i found that very useful. i'm sure there are 3rd party apps for that also but the factory interface for those chat programs were pretty easy to use and functional. who knows, maybe all smart phones have those things loaded on them now.

palm users will swear by palm, iphone users will swear by the iphone, and BB users will swear by their BB's. its like a rock, paper, scissor game, each one will have some pluses that the other one lacks.

 

There is a connector to convert the head phones to 3.5mm. The Bose headphones make a world's difference.