My attitude is, “If you’re happy, you’re happy.” The data plan I’m using adds $30 a month to what had been my cell phone bill. Not everyone would see that as a bargain. I find benefits for myself from that $1 a day–using Evernote from my phone, for example; comparing prices on the fly (meaning, in the store); having the option to use Twitter, to update my blog, or to customize my digital toolbox by adding apps.

That’s not to say this is what you should do. What’s worked for me, though, is that I’ve reduced portable devices by one, since the PDA is now part of the phone. And I’ve also reduced the distance between the computer and the phone.

I use outlook too, and my contacts sync easily everytime I hook up to my computer – no third party software or anything.

I still don’t want to pay for a data plan and my ipod is serving me well so far.

I wish you well in your search. It’s almost exactly one year since I got my Verizon Drois Eris smartphone. I’ve been able to sync with both my Outlook calendar and my email. Currently I’m fiddling with task/to-do software. I’m beginning to think I need to abandon the effort to have the tasks sync with Outlook’s tasks, which is too bad–but mostly because I’m a creature of habit.

It occurred to me that if I can find task/event stuff that suits me, maybe I can get off the Outlook calendar, though I’m still disinclined to use Google’s. It’s a bias of mine: I don’t want to share any more info with them than I absolutely have to. So I have a gmail address but don’t actually use it for anything. (My “real” email is through my own domain.)

There are so many useful things about a smartphone (especially one that lets you make calls) that I have spent very little time mourning the loss of my PDA.

One GIANT problem: The app I use MOST on the pda is Pocket Quicken. To have my home financials available on the portable, and to sync them (almost) effortlessly, is essential to my way of life (not quite religious, but close to it). So, what happens when I graduate to the Ipod Touch? NOTHING, as I found out. Apple offers NOTHING for Quicken, and Quicken offers NOTHING for the Iphone/Ipod. Zilch. The maker of Pocket Quicken (Landware) offers NOTHING. And, they have no plans to offer anything, because they get no support from Quicken and no support from Apple. And they don’t expect to in the future.

So rather than change my religion, I guess I’m faced with coaxing the last life out of my x51v.

The other problem: synching in general. Yes, I find on the Ipod Touch I can use Pocket Money (or something like that) and I can get it ot sync with Quicken, if I do this manua thing by exchanging the data file. And, I find I can use an Outlook address book substitute and “get” it to sync with Outlook by performing such-and-such instructions. Similarly with an Outlook calendar substitute.

Well, I just don’t want to plug the Ipod into the computer, issue instructions to sync this, then instructions to sync that, then…

With my PDA, I just plugged the thing in. Then everything was synched in a few seconds. A near-religious experience?