As someone who used to have to troubleshoot a former boss's Treo, I can heartily recommend that you avoid it.

My HP iPaq sucks butts. I heartily recomment that you avoid it.

I love my HP iPaq 3115. I don't know what the Mac compatibility issues are, though.

I recommend she go for the head-leant-back deep kiss, with one hand on her lower back and one foot planted behind her for stabilizing when she swoons.

Oh, -- oops, you didn't mean that kind of PDA.

I like my Palm TX a lot. It has Bluetooth and Wi-fi. The Wi-fi is especially helpful if your office has wireless internet, or if your boss is often in cafes or airports where there is wireless. It is great to whip out for a minute or two to check e-mail or Web sites. It's so much nicer than having to sit down, pull out a laptop, start it up, and so on. Also, the screen is large, very sharp, has great colors, and is very bright.

The new Blackberry Pearl looks really nice. It would do many of the things PDAs do (keep a calendar, surf the Net), except you can make phone calls. On the down side: you would get the Internet by paying for RIM's service (no Wi-fi), you can't load programs on it, you can't load or edit documents on it, and you can't listen to MP3s with it (I don't think). The TX does all that.

It was easy to learn to use the TX, although once you get it you'll have to buy a few software programs to have it do the cool stuff. Documents-to-Go and a better Web browser are two of those. I was sad that I didn't get instant gratification from it :) Also the audio could be better: it buzzes a little and sometimes the system causes it to make a noise that's annoying.

Good luck to your boss!

I like my Blackberry 8700c. I just bought a screen protector (ScreenPatronus) and some non-slip backing (eGrips) for it, so I'll soon stop worrying about it. It's pretty cool. But I bet there are better ones out there, especially if it can be expensed.

The full keyboard on the 8700 is easy to use. I can surf the web and send and receive emails, but for some reason I can't post to Mecha from it. Maybe there's some app available that will let me, but I lack savvy with these things.

Oh yeah, I set it so my background image on the menu page is this:

≡ Click to see image ≡

That's Nelson Sargento, my favorite sambista ever.

I loved my old (and long discontinued) Palm V. The Zire 72 that replaced it was okay, but didn't last (though the camera was nice). I like my new Treo 700p but it's too soon (see mudpuppie's comment) to tell if it's a classic.

I love my Palm TX but I already had the touchscreen and power switch break (and had to send it back twice for these to be repaired). The Palm Vx and m500 I had sure survived a lot more than that.

All that said, I'd still advise a TX to anyone who can afford it.

Ooh, I think I'm going to pick up a TX today. My iPaq crashes so often I don't even bother to use it other than playing solitaire during long meetings.

Oh yeah, I don't think my Blackberry is very compatible with macs (at least it only came with software for Windows). Something I might look into one day, since I own a mac.

Luckily my mac is just a standalone box I use for my writing only, so I don't have to deal with getting it to work all that much. I don't like my mac at all. But I can't argue with free.

Okay, thanks guys, this gives me a good place to start.