On a trip to Atlanta several weeks ago I realized I forgot my charging cord for my Treo 650. After living without my Treo for a day I decided I would purchase yet another car charger. I pulled into the Cingular parking lot thinking I would be just a few minutes. How long could it take to pick up a car charger?

Well, they were fresh out of car chargers for the Treo but they did have this new PDA called a Black Jack! Wow! This new PDA was everything I wanted. It was small, light weight and seemed to have all the bells and whistles. So, instead of a $20 charger I ended up with a new PDA The Black Jack runs Windows Mobile so I would have to learn the new operating system.

The first thing I realized was how much I used the touch screen on my Treo. The Black Jack does not have a touch screen so all navigation was accomplished with buttons and the wheel on the right side. It seemed that everything I wanted to do took several steps to accomplish. And I couldn't use the touch screen. This wasn't going to work.

After about a week, I realized the Black Jack was a very nice phone but not robust enough for what I wanted, so I switched to the new Cingular 8525. This phone is much larger than the Black Jack but it does have a touch screen and a slide out keyboard that fits my big hands much better.

So now I have a PDA that does everything I want running Windows Mobile. I miss using the Palm operating system but my IT guys tell me that Windows Mobile is the future so I'll keep working with the 8525. I'll let you know what I think in a few weeks.