The good news is that while there are a lot of models on the market, there are fewer differences between the two main operating systems that run them —Palm and Pocket PC—than ever before. That's good news because your most critical applications, including your personal information manager or PIM, will easily sync with both operating systems. That wasn't always the case.

A few differences do remain however. The least expensive Palm PDAs are still cheaper than the cheapest Pocket PCs, and Palm devices tend to have longer battery life in general. It can also be argued that the Palm in-terface remains a wee bit more intuitive and easier to learn than that of the Pocket PC. If WiFi network access is important to you, you'll find a wider array of Pocket PC devices with that support. And thanks to Microsoft's long campaign to refine its Media Player, you'll find that Pocket PCs also tend to be better for playing video.

In terms of physical differences, there are only a few basic generalizations to be made. First, with their E2, T5, and now LifeDrive models, Palm has caught up with the Pocket PC platform in terms of using its handhelds as portable flash drives for storing files (a big improvement over older models). Top-of-the-line Pocket PCs also have 640x480 VGA screens, which make them pretty awesome for Web browsing and remote desktop access; Palms top out at 320x480. Touch screen quality is largely on a par between the devices available on the two platforms, though you'll still pay more for the higher quality, and brighter screens available on high end models.

What follows is a list of a few specific PDAs we've reviewed and find best for the use specified.

Basic personal PDA - Palm Zire 31: With a color screen, MP3 playback, and solid PIM features, the Zire 31 is a good choice for anyone who wants to manage personal information simply—and inexpensively.

Basic Business PDA - Tungsten E2 : The Tungsten E2 is a good choice for a basic business PDA. It looks good, and displays PIM data and office documents in an attractive manner.

Gaming/multimedia PDA - Dell Axim X50v: The Dell Axim X50v is an attractively priced VGA Pocket PC that has excellent multimedia features and prom-ises a great gaming experience.

High-end business PDA - HP iPaq hx4700: The gorgeous, super-powerful HP iPaq hx4700 PocketPC is the absolute top of the handheld heap in power and performance.

PDA/phone - palmOne Treo 650 (Cingular/GSM): We like all Treos, but our all around favorite and our Editor's Choice for phone/e-mail devices, the PalmOne Treo 650, performs better on Cingular's network than on Sprint's, though you'll pay more for the added speed. (Sprint version, Verizon version)

Jack-of-all-trades PDA - Palm LifeDrive: Nearly-endless storage makes this a great device for toting and viewing lots of files.

Blackberry – Aficionados of RIM's Blackberry devices should keep an eye out for our upcoming review of the new Blackberry 7290. It's a BlackBerry device that's equally adept at e-mail, IM, and Web browsing.

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.