I currently have a palm pda and I am looking to upgrade. I saw the pearl and liked it but was wondering in the long haul should I get the pearl which will be used as a phone and a pda (little email) or just go with a separate pda. I generally like having one item for each use, but i travel a lot and just bringing one looks nice. Is it worth it or more trouble?

Thanks

The Pearl (8100) can do basically everything a PDA can do so you can ditch your PDA.

The Pearl will be easier to sync and has an extremely reliable OS, two things which would put it first in my book. The compactness for travel is a major plus as well--I don't know of any PDA that small.

Actually that is not entirely correct. There are some features that the pearl does not offer that other PDA's do. While the features range differently from PDA to PDA, and covering each point could take a while, you can find one you like and compare the features to that of the pearl.

PDA's can prove to be handy, but blackberrys hold their own weight too!

Thanks for the input. I am on sprint right now with a great package and I think I will wait to see what happens with them. I am great at procrastinating.
It took me a day to write this...

Such as?

The Pearl is a great little device that is blackberry solid in terms of the core functions (email, schedule, contacts, phone). It also ads great new features (like voice-activated dialing) but lacks the more than 10,000 add-on software offerings that Palm brings. Palm, as you know, is more flexible but far more buggy. However, at this point in time (Dec 13) PocketMac's newest version, that claims to sync the Pearl and other BB devices with Mac, DO NOT WORK! Since their latest release, there has been a new beta release that came out on Dec 11. I'm in the beta test group. The beta doesn't work either. From what I can tell, it works okay with an intel-based Mac, but if you have a PowerBook or similar generation Mac, expect that the sync will do anything from sync SOME data SOME OF THE TIME to syncing none of it at any time. Palm at least has good third party software (Missing Sync) that does the job of syncing to Mac.

Just google the terms "Pearl" "Mac" "Sync" and "problems" to see hundreds of comments from dissatisfied Mac users who have tried upgrading to a Pearl.

I have an intel mac and have been reading the threads on pocketmac. Does not sound promising. Since it will be for personal use and I need the calendar function the most. I use now up to date, I think I will just keep reading and see what happens before I make the jump.

Thanks