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So there I was, poring over my requirements, finding weakness in every possible alternative in my own music-player quandary. In fact, I had ruled out everything but PDAs.

Why a PDA? Well, for one thing, they’re fast enough to handle audio well now, and most of them will do video acceptably these days. And if the software isn’t what I want, I can always swap it out with other stuff. Plus there’s the bonus of one fewer device to carry around.

I have to admit that Palm was never really a consideration in this discussion. I did some software design work on Palms back in 1999 and 2000, and at the time, I remember asking at the PalmSource conferences what their plans were for hardware architecture. I remember being unimpressed. And that feeling has stuck. There wasn’t a single Palm OS-based device that could accomplish my major requirements satisfactorily.

I looked briefly at the Zaurus, which had some traits that appealed to me: Linux- and Java-based architecture, VGA display, built-in keyboard, Opera 7. It’s also huge, at 6.2″ by 3.2″.

That left me with the Pocket PC line. But wait, you say, aren’t you a Mac user? Yes, smartass, I am. And there are two packages (PocketMac and the Missing Sync) that make this seeming incompatibility a little bit less of a problem. (Though there are still issues, which I will discuss in Part 3.) There are even Aqua skins available for those who really, really want their Pocket PCs to look like Macs.

So, Pocket PCs. There’s a lot of them. Again, back to requirements:

• MP3 player with 10 hours of playback between charges
• audio recording at a minimum of 96kbps MP3, and the higher the better
• 40GB storage
• Nice-to-haves:
  • phone functionality (hey, may as well keep my options open…)
  • note-taking functionality
  • Bluetooth and/or WiFi
  • audio editing capabilities

Well, the 40GB drive is out now that I’m looking at PDAs, since none of the devices have them. I decided to make do with a good-sized Compact Flash or SD card. All of the rest of my feature requests were available to me. I added a 640×480 display to my requirements, along with good enough IR to use the device as a remote. (This was something I used to love about my old PalmPilot Pro.)

So then, which one do I get? I found a helpful list comparing VGA-capable Pocket PCs side-by-side, from which I made my selection.

HP makes an iPaq, the hx4700, which meets many of my requirements, and has great battery life, but only 64MB of RAM, and no USB host, which limits the accessories I can attach to it. (This figures into the equation later.) Asus makes a couple devices with Bluetooth, USB host, and a 1.2Mpix camera, but one lacks WiFi, and both have anemic battery lives. Toshiba makes one that’s the largest and heaviest of the bunch, without really standing out in any other categories. And Dell’s, while it features an alluring VGA output, strangely lacks USB host, and has the smallest battery capacity.

All of which led me to the Fujitsu/Siemens Pocket Loox 720. The thing’s a technological Swiss Army knife: VGA, 802.11b, Bluetooth, consumer-grade IR, Compact Flash and SD slots, 1.3-megapixel camera, large capacity battery, and USB host. The 720 even has a receiver to be used as a VoIP phone, though to my knowledge Skype doesn’t yet work with it.

There’s just one thing: they don’t sell it in the US market. Fortunately, Expansys was nice enough to think of that, and I found one over there. After all of my searching, this was The One. I ordered it, waited impatiently, and now, it’s sitting in my hot little hands. (Well, not right now, since I’m typing, but you get the idea.)

Storage-wise, I have added a 2GB Compact Flash card (procured from eCost for $119 after rebate), which should give me enough music to keep me busy. I used to think that I needed my entire music catalog with me at all times, but now I’ve decided that 20 or 30 CDs’ worth is probably plenty. And if I can’t manage to shake that need to keep everything with me, even with most of it accessible to me over the Internet, I can always buy myself a portable 2.5″ 40GB hard drive which matches the dimensions of my Pocket PC pretty much exactly, and with USB host, I’ll be able to pull down new music from it as I see fit. I ended up getting what really matters to me, which is the important part.

I suppose there’s a little bit of long-term agenda in my purchase. For a long time now, I’ve been whining about wanting to have a personal server, where all of my important or shareable documents can reside. Well, from what I read, these devices even have an HTTP server built-in, so I could share out files to pretty much any device from wherever I am. I’m quite fond of that idea. When I add a 3G phone to the mix, it’s conceivable that I could become my own roving hotspot. And I like that idea even more.

I’m planning to try to use this as my primary note-taking device at my next conference, once I add a small USB keyboard to the mix, and leaving my laptop in my room (in a safe, with attack dogs covered in poison guarding it). I’ll have my IM clients working on there by that time. All that’s missing, then, is an IRC sidechannel to make snarky comments on, and I’m working on that, too.

That’s it for the story of how I got my shiny new toy. On Monday, when I get back, I’ll talk about what I plan to do with it, and what I think of the system so far.