Resources: Buyer's Guide

Expansions

     Before you buy your device, there is another part of the market to look at, expansions.  Some devices have few or no expandability options, while others have an almost endless supply of different options.  Think about what you might want to add to your device.  If you are looking at a device that can't play MP3's, make sure there isn't an expansion module that would allow for you to play MP3's.  Consider if you will be wanting to go wireless in the future.  If you are, you might check to see if the device you are looking at has any wireless options on the market or coming in the future.
     The two primary expansion card types used in PDA's are Compact Flash and Secure Digital.  Compact Flash (CF) has been around the longest, though actually is being less used in new devices.  CF is larger than secure digital (SD), though this helps to allow for it to come in expansion flavors (networking, modems, cameras, etc) as well as memory.  CF also is large enough to allow for adaptation to other memory types like SD, Sony's Memory Stick, and Smart Media.  This may be extremely important to uses that have other devices like cameras.  CF is also generally cheaper and generally more advanced.  New memory and expansion technology usually first appears in CF before media types like SD.  Secure Digital is half the size of CF and thinner.  SD is primarily memory, though a new standard called SDIO has been introduced for allowing SD cards to be expansions as well.  Be aware, not all devices with SD will support the SDIO cards and may only support memory (meaning no wireless).  SD has had major price cuts and common memory sizes are consistent with CF.  If you are interested in a Sony device, you will find they use Memory Sticks, which are similar to SD in size and functionality.

What else could there be...

 

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