Technology Rotations

[g12321]

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I am doing my clinical rotations and would like to have a pda or smartphone to support the medical softwares and so on. but I am a noob when it comes to phones, what type of phones do I need?
and what will be the best one to fit in a 150-200$ budget?
thanks a lot

 

[TMP-SMX]

There's a lot of options. Depends on what carrier has good service where you are and how much you want to pay. Data plans range from $15 and realistically $25 for the iPhone on AT&T while most other carriers are $30 for their smartphones.

So the iPhone 4 comes out at the end of this month and that's on AT&T. It really has become the standard in terms of apps available for it and especially medical apps though in the past that was held by the old Palm machines.

Many people like the android phones and your options are the new HTC Evo 4G on Sprint which adds the additional $10 onto the data plan for 4G service even if you don't have 4G in your area though Sprint is in general lower cost, Motorola Droid on Verizon, HTC Droid Incredible also on Verizon. Problem is that all the apps aren't there. Epocrates Essentials is still not available for Android.

You can also go with a Blackberry phone which are on most carriers but I do recommend a touch screen. I don't think BB is doing much in terms of work on its Storm series which is a touch screen and screens tend to be on the small end compared to other smartphones. Many of the medical apps are available for the Symbian OS which BB uses.

You can also go with Palm including the Palm Pixi Plus and Palm Pre. They are very low cost phones up front with contract. Many apps are now available including Epocrates Essentials. Problems include smaller screen, keyboard isn't the easiest to use, and uncertain development of the Palm OS in the smartphone realm after HP bought the company.

 

[JacobSilge]

I am doing my clinical rotations and would like to have a pda or smartphone to support the medical softwares and so on. but I am a noob when it comes to phones, what type of phones do I need?
and what will be the best one to fit in a 150-200$ budget?
thanks a lot

If cost is a big issue, you are planning to use this primarily for medical applications, and you have good WiFi in the hospital, I would suggest the iPod Touch, as it would be able to do the things you need and would be in your price range (199 for 8gb model). Once you factor in ~$30/month for a data plan, it is clear that regardless of the upfront price, the ~$700 for the more expensive plan over the life of the phone will add up, making the up front price negligible. However, having always-on access to e-mail is supposedly very helpful fourth year when applying to residencies, which you could only really get from a smartphone. As such, the above advice is very good, though I found that the full Epocrates Essentials wasn't as helpful as I would have thought - I mainly just used the Epocrates Drug Reference, which is on all major platforms. Just watch out for coverage areas and battery life if you will have a lot of 30 hour shifts!

 

[TMP-SMX]

Well if you always have wifi in the hospital I'd say it's still worth it to have the iPhone as you could still go with the $15 a month data plan (AT&T only). If you aren't a big talker then the cheapest call plan is going to be about $40 and there is rollover. Plus, many schools allow you get 15% off that phone plan. Then texts are $5 for 200 texts, $15 for 1500, and $20 for unlimited.