On December 16, 2007, I lost my Palm TX.

I depended on this beloved device for all the usual PDA services, such as phone numbers and appointments. With an external bluetooth GPS antenna, it was a pathfinder. I could keep elaborate, hierarchical to-do lists (for projects I never did, but never mind). I could play videos and music with startlingly high quality.

I was meeting my wife at Johnnie's Pizza on the 3^rd Street Promenade, and trying to get online with Santa Monica's City WiFi (wasn't able to). What with one thing and another, I must have left it on the table. A block later, I'm checking pockets, and my little Palm TX isn't in its accustomed place. I dash back and it is gone. Not on table, not in lost & found, not at the manager's station, nowhere. The manager asks the waitress, and she shrugs, annoyed and sullen.

And yes, it has my name and phone number on the back, so there's no mystery about ownership or how to return it. Just saying.

When I lose something, I feel my gut drop through a hole. I don't just lose the thing, the money it cost, but also my mind. I have lost control. In a year, I just know it, I will be wandering the streets, naked and howling, covered with feces. The Palm TX? That's where it all started. He seemed fine, they'll say, until that day.

So, now. What do I do? Live without a PDA? Get a new Palm TX? Get a smartphone? If so, which?

A week later, I came to New York for holiday family stuff. Just when I need to make schedules, check lists, look up those once-a-year phone numbers. Very awkward! I actually had to make little notes on scraps of paper. By the end of each day I had accumulated a stout little wad of notes and receipts, which had to be sorted, checked off, and consolidated.

So, first thing, to tide me over - buy a pad. I find a tiny memo pad - 50 pages of non-volatile memory. No battery to replace, costs a buck and a half, and it laughs at a six-foot drop onto concrete! Shoot, it could survive a six hundred foot drop! The interface is very simple (lines), and you can't be distracted by Solitaire.

I love my gadgets, but sometimes a piece of paper and a pencil is the most appropriate technology. And sitting in public, writing on a pad, is way hipper than doodling cretinously on an iPhone. It shows you're all about the content, not the gear.

But, alas, I am about the gear. So I head on over, with the wife and daughter, to the 24-hour Apple Store across from the Plaza Hotel to look at the pretty shiny things. I have to say, I am smitten with the iPod Touch. It is a jewel! Shiny, slender, sleek. The web browser, Safari, is mind-blowingly great. Makes Palm's Blazer look coarse and stupid. The deal breaker, though, is that I can't install third party software. It can only use what it comes with - media player and pretty nice contact and calendar apps. It has an on-screen keyboard, and a calendar, but you can't add an appointment or a contact. I asked the very pleasant salesman, is there, for instance, a chess program I could buy? He told me that I could go to a chess website. Yeah, I guess, but free WiFi is pretty scarce.

The hacking solution is called a "jailbreak", and is a race between Apple and the hackers. But only home-brew games are being developed until Apple opens up the platform (rumors abound).

I understand that Apple quality depends on their closed system, their control over hardware and software, and their preventing every little software writer from adding conflicts and bugginess to the system. But that is what I like about the Palm! There are great little cheap programs that somebody wrote in his parents' basement, full of ingenuity and idiosyncrasy. That was the VW Bug appeal of the Palm - with a little knowledge and an afternoon off, you could get under the hood and tune her up. Not so with the iPodiverse. You must surrender to the experts - they know what's best! I like the community of enthusiasts, all customizing, adding, hacking, and tweaking. I want to be able to creatively void my warranty.

So, the iPod Touch is out until the platform opens. The iPhone is out, because I've been with AT&T/Cingular and didn't like it. Not a month went by without a billing error. T-Mobile offers the Dash and the Wing, both phones with good reputations, but they use Windows Mobile 6. And my limited experience with that OS is that you have to click three times for each click on a Palm system. It is about as well designed as Windows itself! So, no go. The Palm 680, a GSM smartphone, is available unlocked. But it does not have WiFi, so I'd be stuck paying T-Mobile $40 a month for internet access.

Lest we forget, the Nokia N95.3, a GSM smartphone with the excellent Symbian OS, is available for only $700! There doesn't seem to be any top price for this stuff.

I could live without the solitaire, the GPS and the media playing. I have an antique 4-button iPod for music and audiobooks, and a Garmin for pathfinding. I don't need to look at eensy-weensy video in my pocket - who does, seriously? But I need my addresses and appointments, viewable and searchable. I really like Scrabble. And I need my soothing little glowing screen, for strategic retreat.

So, I'm waiting the Palm TX to be available for $200 on Amazon. And, until then, I have my spiral bound memo pad.

Peter Basch

In a couple of weeks, more video downloads and more about the writers strike!