best PDA / Smartphone for clinicals and beyond??

[beefy]

wondering whether it's better to go with Palm OS or Pocket PC (ie windows mobile) if i were to get PDA for clinicals.. and which brand/model you would recommend? Some essential software suggestions would be appreciated too..

also, any idea if a smartphone (cellphone with PDA capabilities) is okay, or will it get flagged because of the "no-cell-phones-in-hospital" rule that i assume exists...

thanks!

[mixahl]

Anything that runs windows is junk. Hardware may be good but software will crash. In pocket pc or windows mobile, when you close a program, it dosent actually shut down completely but it stays running in the background and takes up RAM. therefore, once you have a good amount of programs running, it will freeze, slow down, crash.
for the time being, you will find many medical programs for the palm platform, so you may get a treo or something and load it up with software from skyscape [dot] com
or if you want to wait, iphone will also have all these programs in about 6 months.

[jaywalk81]

what mixahl said

i have a windows based smart phone now...and i should have waited and just get the new iphone, since epocrates will be running on iphone soon.

[basupran]

Anything that runs windows is junk. Hardware may be good but software will crash. In pocket pc or windows mobile, when you close a program, it dosent actually shut down completely but it stays running in the background and takes up RAM. therefore, once you have a good amount of programs running, it will freeze, slow down, crash.
for the time being, you will find many medical programs for the palm platform, so you may get a treo or something and load it up with software from skyscape [dot] com
or if you want to wait, iphone will also have all these programs in about 6 months.

I guess everyones results may vary. I have an HTC Mogul with Windows Mob 6.0 and I love it. I do not have problems with my OS crashing. About the running programs-there is a simple fix for this: a program called Magic Button.

http://www.slipperybrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/htc-mogul.jpg