My Palm m500 and Jeanhee’s Palm V both bit the dust in the span of a week and so I started shopping for new PDAs. My tech-buying philosophy generally precludes buying at the high-end. I much happier with getting a good deal and saving the money to upgrade faster. (My little sisters tend to be a big beneficiary of my frequent upgrades!)

As far as my portable electronics go, I don’t treat mine well. They tend to get tossed into a pocket of my gym bag as I rollerblade across town and sometimes have to deal with the dangers of sunscreen and sand when they accompany me to beach volleyball tourneys. I’ve busted two iPod remotes and have now cracked the headphone jack collar. I trashed my last phone twice, too. This is what happends when you put shoddy workmanship to the test.

So despite the fact that I’d totally dig a new Treo, I ruled it out on account that buying two would run us over a grand and I’d probably break it. I also recently got a Sony Ericsson T616. That meant that I didn’t need a PDA with telephony, and that it would probably be cool to have BlueTooth, since the phone was armed with it.

I ended up picking up a pair of “blemished” Palm Tungsten T units off of Overstock.com for under $300 total. The blemishes were very minor and the units are otherwise like new.

I’m really digging the Tungsten T. Having grown accustomed to the m500, I was skeptical about why I would want a color screen for my digitally overblown appointment book. I still think it’s a luxury, but I will say that the color icons in Palm OS 5 are really cool. The feel of the stylus on the screen is all silky smooth, too.

But what’s really cool is the BlueTooth. In the few days I’ve had the Tungsten, I figured out how to get my Mac to share it’s Internet connection over BlueTooth and run a PPP server so I can get online from the Palm within range of my Mac. I even installed an ssh client on the Palm! The Palm also integrates nicely with my phone, the T616. I can choose a number from my address book and have the Palm automatically initiate the call on my phone. I can send SMS messages from my Palm. I can even use the cell phone as a GPRS modem to connect to the Internet. It’s all wireless over BlueTooth, so I could do all this without even having to know which pocket my phone is in.

While I’ve geeking out, Jeanhee has simply resumed her life with her Palm, using it just like she did her Palm V and enjoying the nice touchs of the new one. (Did I mention it has a voice recorder and that the bottom of the unit slides down to reveal the graffiti area?)