I need recommendations for a good email handheld pc

[vortexer]

Hello, I have an 80 year old mother who has been trying for years to get this whole computer thing down. But the normal occurances of a full scale computer is to much for her to understand. All she does is get frustrated and doesn't retain the information.

So I need to find her a mini pc under 10 inches square or less that mostly deals with email only. This way she can just send and answer emails which is all she uses the computer for anyway, and she'll be happy as can be. Anyone know of any good products that will do this? Not interested in the Iphone. It also needs to have as few features on it as possible but mostly email. Please let me know, thank you very much.

[EricG1793]

Assuming the way you're expecting this handheld to work is by a wireless access point at her house, I'd recommend an AlhpaSmart "Dana". It has a full keyboard, and has a Palm operating system, which supports web browsing and Email, and the rest of the Palm features, plus the Alphasmart word processor, I believe. Check it out here. (http://alphasmart.com/products/dana-w_In.html) I have an AlphaSmart Neo, but that's strictly word processing, and a few other small things, and doesn't support the Internet. Although it gets extremely good battery life; I think it really does get the few hundred hours they say it does. And it's wicked solid, and I assume the Dana is too, so if she happened to drop it, etc. it'd be OK.

But if you want to get her even smaller than that with pretty much the same features, it seems as though the Palm Handheld TX (http://www.palm.com/us/products/handhelds/tx/index.html)would fit her needs. However this excludes a keyboard; she'd have to fumble with touching the small spaces on the touch screen with that. So I think the Dana would be the best.

I have a grandfather who's 81 and my dad and I are trying to make him understand the computer that we gave him (our old one, I know I've told the story about it on this site) and it's a big challenge to get him to understand how to click his name and type his password and hit OK to log in (or press enter, but "Where's that?"), so I understand the situation you're in. My dad and I have kind of backed off telling him to get Internet service at his house for the computer, because we think that if it's a struggle for him to use the computer, he'd be a menace online with all the spam and that great stuff... *Sigh*

I hope this helps. Good luck!

[EricG1793]

Assuming the way you're expecting this handheld to work is by a wireless access point at her house, I'd recommend an AlhpaSmart "Dana". It has a full keyboard, and has a Palm operating system, which supports web browsing and Email, and the rest of the Palm features, plus the Alphasmart word processor, I believe. Check it out here. (http://alphasmart.com/products/dana-w_In.html) I have an AlphaSmart Neo, but that's strictly word processing, and a few other small things, and doesn't support the Internet. Although it gets extremely good battery life; I think it really does get the few hundred hours they say it does. And it's wicked solid, and I assume the Dana is too, so if she happened to drop it, etc. it'd be OK.

But if you want to get her even smaller than that with pretty much the same features, it seems as though the Palm Handheld TX (http://www.palm.com/us/products/handhelds/tx/index.html)would fit her needs. However this excludes a keyboard; she'd have to fumble with touching the small spaces on the touch screen with that. So I think the Dana would be the best.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

[vortexer]

Sorry I was away for a bit, that helps a lot!!!! Thanks, the dana would be best. I'll check it out, if anyone has any others they know of please let me know, thanks!

[EricG1793]

You're welcome! :) I'm glad I was able to stray from my usual Coffee Lounge position and help someone out with a computer issue. :D Although I am pretty good with computers, some of the stuff in the Computer Issues is beyond my scope....

[vortexer]

LOL uh oh, you better watch out, your slowly being deprogrammed. Before you know it you'll be so good you'll be hacking top secret facilities.