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With handheld gadgets, it's finding the right balance between ease of use and power. Last Sunday's column took a look at two new handhelds that land on either side of this dividing line--Toshiba's e310 PocketPC and Handspring's Treo 90. What do the two new handheld organizers from Handspring and Toshiba have in common? Neither one is perfect (no handheld is), but one does a much better job of serving a home user's needs.

Companies are trying to outdo each other by offering the latest software features and the slickest designs in handheld organizers. Need to take a look at what are the actual qualities you can benefit from before you reach into your wallet to purchase your organizer?

Also, two weeks ago, Pegoraro covered the future of Internet radio. With Web radio, it's a proposal for a system of licensing fees that hit online broadcasters much harder than FM or satellite competitors.

Join Fast Forward columnist Rob Pegoraro for a discussion on the latest digital technology issues.

Below is the transcript.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Rob Pegoraro: It's been a confusing few weeks in technology.

The Librarian of Congress--not the person who comes to mind when you think "arbiter of Web radio"--rejected without comment a proposed system of recording royalties that most Internet broadcasters had denounced. Handheld-organizer manufacturer Handspring introduced a new Treo model, which is like its earlier Treos except it doesn't include any wireless functions and doesn't cost $500 or so. Competing manufacturer Toshiba is now selling its own handheld, which it advertises as the smallest, lightest and cheapest of its kind--true, if you ignore Palm-based models like, say, Handspring's new Treo. And a panel set up to decide how to stop digital-TV broadcasts from being copied and shared over the Internet ground failed to its deadline on Friday to issue a report on how to do just that.

I've written about some of these issues, and we've covered the others in daily stories. There should be plenty to talk about in all that... so let's get cracking.

Alexandria, Va.: I am thinking about getting an MP3 player module for my Handspring Visor. Have you heard anything good or bad about these modules? I am concerned that after awhile they may make my Handspring seem to bulky.

Will I be able to leave the module plugged in all the time without making the PDA too bulky?

Rob Pegoraro: A year ago, I would have recommended the SoundsGood Springboard module, from a company called Good Technologies (www.good.com). The device, from the reviews that I read, was, in fact, pretty good. But Good has "refocused" itself on the BlackBerry market and doesn't make or sell this module anymore.

The remaining MP3 modules, unfortunately, do stick out a bit from the regular profile of a Visor: http://www.handspring.com/products/Category.jhtml?id=170018

In the long run, I'm afraid the Springboard module concept is basically dead. No Treo ships with it; the one new Handspring product that does include an expansion slot, the Treo 90 I reviewed yestreday, uses SecureDigital cards instead.

Virginia: George Mason University: Are there any pda's that cost a mere $100 and don't suck? I don't need color or email. Just a wordperfect clone and an adress book. Or am I the only one who sees $299 as not being the "cheap" model? Maybe I need a Newton.

Rob Pegoraro: The address book is no problem--any basic Palm, Handspring Visor or Sony Clie will get you that, although you'll probably have to find a discontinued model to get to your $100 price.

But you're not going to find WordPerfect compabitility... well, anywhere easily. The programs that support word processing on these handhelds work with Word or RTF documents only--no matter what, you'll have to save your WP docs in some other format.

Washington, D.C.: What handheld device would you recommend for a beginner? I have a Dell computer at home.

Rob Pegoraro: I'd go with any of the under-200 models from Palm, Handspring or Sony. The Palm m105 and Handspring Visor Neo or Platinum include decent black-and-white screens and 8 megs of memory (more than enough for beginner use) for $150; the Clie S360 doubles memory to 16 megs for $20 more.

College Park, Md.: Hi Rob. I have a total of 832MBs of RAM on an older PowerMac machine running OS 9.1. The Memory Control panel recognizes all the interleaved DIMM chips in their correct slots. When I ran TTPro 3.05, it seems to recognize a pair of DIMMs as 3712M and not 128M, as it should be. The RAM test portion of TTPro passes with flying colors. I then took them out and tried installing them one at a time and de-interleaved them to isolate a bad chip, but they all work fine. Any other suggestions?

Rob Pegoraro: Maybe I'm missing something here, but... does your Mac run fine with the memory as installed? Does the right number show up in the About This Macintosh window?

If so, I wouldn't worry about what TechTool is reporting.

Frederick Md.: What's the best - price, easy to use, easy to see screen for a new PDA/Handheld user? A nice feature would be one that can get and send email. Suggestions

Rob Pegoraro: I have to answer your questoin with a questoin--by "send and receive e-mail," do you mean wirelessly or when you connect the handheld to the computer? Any handheld will take care of the latter task; you just have to set up a "conduit" to transfer new mail to the handheld, where you can read and reply to it, then send your replies over to the desktop, which actually sends them on.

Wireless access will cost you a good deal more and may require you to switch to a different e-mail address, depending on what service and hardware you use.

Maryland: Rob,

Any more news on AOL acquiring Red Hat and merging with Sun Microsystems?

Rob Pegoraro: No, and that whole scenario sounds like a colossal pipe dream to me. AOL merging with Sun? I don't think so.

Falls Church, Va., re: DSL: Hey Rob, I am still in love with Verizon DSL service but I have noticed a tech support "theme": When there are tech problems it is never their network or servers! I have had several incidents of connectivity problems, I check their system status page, see no report of problems, call tech support and go through the whole diagnostic review with them. I am usually told the problem is with my end and I should uninstall and reinstall the suspicious program (usually Outlook Express). I do not. I check back when possible and will see a problem reported on the system status page. Any other Verizon users notice the same theme? Have a good one. BTW: my XP system has crashed ONCE since I got it in March! Unbelievable.

Rob Pegoraro: So Verizon's tech support is acting... like an Internet provider's tech support! Shocking :)

Actually, that's what I'd always heard about their service. But I've heard similar things about quite a few other ISPs.

About XP--wow! That's pretty impressive (although some of the Linux-using folks I know won't be that impressed by "only" 70 or 80 days of uptime).

Washington, D.C.: Just some armchair editing: I think Daniel Greenberg should've mentioned at the TOP that TiVo is the one of these gadgets that doesn't include a proper commercial skip button. Lacking that, I don't care what other features it has!

How different is Palm OS 5 going to be? With the processors it will be able to use, I suspect the next wave of palms will be a different sort of animal than the ones we have today...

Rob Pegoraro: Well, at least we got you to read down to the bottom of the TiVo story, right? :)

Palm OS 5 may not look that different to somebody who's been using a color Sony Clie. It'll support a 320 x 320 color screen--but the difference is, this will be standard in the OS, not bolted one by one manufacturer.

The big difference is under the hood, where OS 5 will support a different, faster processor. This means that, for instance, your next handheld shouldn't need to use a separate processor to play back MP3s.

This won't look much different, in terms of interfaces, from the current standard. Also note that the version that will be designed to support wireless devices, I'm told, won't ship until early next year.

Philadelphia, Pa.: Rob;

Some of the mid-line Palm products (eg. m125 and m105 (I believe)) come bundled with Documents To Go which allows you to edit and view word documents. Dunno if they take WordPerfect but you could probably save it as a word doc in wordperfect then save it back afterwards.

Rob Pegoraro: That's what I had in mind. BlueNomad's WordSmith should do the same thing. But you lose the advantage of the integrated shortcuts these programs place into Word's menus to move files to the Palm.

Crystal City, Va.: I'm looking to buy my first PDA, and don't need much other than compatibility with Outlook. It seems the biggest decision is color vs. monochrome. Is one any better than the other?

Rob Pegoraro: Yeah, color's better than black and white (unless you're talking about colorizing classic flicks). If you'd like to be able to show pictures or look at maps on your handheld, color is pretty much mandatory. If you only need to look at text, it's an option.

The other angle is price. The cheapest black-and-white PDAs go for $150, but the cheapest color models start at $280 (the Palm m130, specifically).

Orlando, Fla.: I have a 3-year-old Handspring Visor (yes, an antique) that has become very delicate and needs to be reset several times a day. Just setting it down on a table can jar it enough that it crashes. So I'm looking for a new low-end model, preferably with rechargable batteries. I'd like to get a Sony, but will it connect to all of the Palm accessories? I love my friend's Logitech soft keyboard/carrying case but I don't know if it only works with the Palm-brand connector

Rob Pegoraro: Most hardware accessories will only connect to one model of handheld--and these days, a lot of the latest only work with Palm's. This is because Palm had enough foresight to standardize on one connector design, then use that on all its new handhelds.

Laurel, Md.: Re: Cheap PDA email

You responded "wirelessly or through a PC". One other option: the PDA connects to a dial-up ISP through a modem. I did it with:

Palm IIIc (c=color) for $125 reburbished off Half.com
Plam Connectivity Kit (basically a 33.6 modem)
Eudora Internet Suite (Freeware)

Total cost less than $200 for dial-up use

BTW, with PTelnet, I can dial up my employer's mainframe just like on a desktop.

Rob Pegoraro: Yes, I did forget about that option :)

Culpeper, Va.: Hi Rob, What is the best wireless PDA combo?

I have just been left a Calif company where I used a Blackberry extensively. What you recommend for me to substitute for a wireless email PDA that would be "instant-on" without an exchange server? Would it be maybe still Blackberry through Earthlink?

Rob Pegoraro: If you're used to the Blackberry style of keyboard, you'll probably want to look at the Handspring Treo. The current models work only with VoiceStream and Cingular (in their GSM modes), but Sprint is coming out with a version for its CDMA network this summer.

The other current option is the Palm i705, which lacks a Blackberry-style keyboard.

Either way, you'll have to set up the handheld to fetch your e-mail at some regular intervals from your ISP's servers. It won't be instant delivery, but you can get close to that.

Washington, D.C.: Looking to make the move from a longtime Palm user to Pocket PC user.

Price not being an issue, what model would you recommend? Have heard about the Ipaq and Sony model so far.

Rob Pegoraro: My own advice, unless you are being compelled to make this switch by your office, is not to move at all. The Pocket PC system... I just don't like it. I really, really, really don't like it.

If you have to use one, though, I would go with the Toshiba. It has less memory than the iPaq but seems just as capable in everyday use, for a price that's about $100 less than anybody else's.

Sony's handhelds use the Palm OS, and they're what I recommend to people thinking of switching to Pocket PC for its advertised multimedia superiority.

re: XP not crashing: Windows 2000 Pro is going on 8 months. And I run my computer hard.

Rob Pegoraro: OK, you've got that XP user beat. Anybody have an uptime figure to top this?

Vienna, Va.: The tech section on sundays seems to be going over my head more and more lately, and I'm proabably in your Palm-owning, cable modem using target audience. Don't be afraid to dumb it down a little more.

Rob Pegoraro: Some readers would say I'm already doing an excellent job of being dumb. But I can always do more!

Washington, D.C.: I have followed your articles about the latest PDA models with interest as I am in the market for a new one. I prefer the Palm platform to the PocketPC format (primarily because of Palm's ease of use and the fact that Bill Gates doesn't need any more of my money). I was ready to purchase the Sony Clie 615c until I heard a new model was coming out; after reading your review of the latest version in which you raised serious questions concerning Sony's PDA strategy, I am not sure whether to buy now or later. My questions are as follows: should I wait until the new Palm 5.0 version is released to purchase a new PDA? What will be the advantages of the Palm 5.0 over version 4.1 (my current version)? Will Sony be supporting the latest version or should I look to another manufacturer? What PDA would you currently recommend for a user interested in a solid overall unit, music capability, long battery life, good memory and a clear color screen? Thank you for your response and your column.

Rob Pegoraro: Funny you mention the T615C--Sony cut the price by $100 over the weekend now. That means Sony's probably going to discontinue it, most likely replacing it with a new handheld it's already selling in Japan, which incorporates an MP3 player and a faster processor in the 615's case. Neither are worth shelling out the extra cash for, not when you can get a good product for cheap today.

I wouldn't want to hold out for OS 5 myself, given those choices. But I would find going without a handheld organizer for several months to be unspeakably painful... YMMV.

re: printers: Rob,

Just bought a Lexmark Z65 4800x1200 5.3 MP. Great printer, two trays, excellent software package. Under $200.

Rob Pegoraro: Thanks for the report on this color inkjet printer. One question: Has Lexmark mastered the art of producing ink that doesn't dissolve the second it gets wet? (Epson has lately been making a point of noting how its new inks can stand up to everyday use; I can attest that its old inks can't.)

Bethesda, Md.: One thing I wanted to clear up in a previous discusion is kde and gnome are both application systems. Both systems come with default windows managers (kwm for KDE and Metacity for gnome). Obviously Microsoft expert argued that KDE was intergrated with the operating system, which it is not. You can use either system or in some cases depending on windows managers like enlightenment you can use both.

Rob Pegoraro: This is an update to the Linux Q&A we had a couple of weeks ago, in which we talked about the different parts of a Linux distribution. As with, well, every other aspect of this operating system, you have an exceptionally broad choice of components to use, which can result in one Linux installation looking very different from another.

Arlington, Va.: Thanks for the helpful compare/contrast of the two systems.

Do you see a broad "killer app" emerging on the handheld platform that will drive slow-adapters like me to get one, or will handhelds likely largely remain a niche (albeit sizable) for tech enthusiasts?

Rob Pegoraro: The "killer app" emerged years ago. It's being able to carry around a little plastic external brain that remembers things that your internal brain won't. What sort of things? Birthdays, phone numbers, vacation schedules, to-do lists, shopping lists, those movies you keep meaning to rent at the next trip to Blockbuster, and so on.

I have never been good at remembering these things on my own, and paper organizers are too big and too vulnerable to data loss (hot-syncing them to the nearest Xerox machine takes a loonnnggg time).

Rob Pegoraro: BTW, here's a link to that upcoming Sony T650 I mentioned earlier. The page is in Japanese, but the pictures of the device (and a series of strange cartoon drawings of somebody using the handheld) should be world-readable:

http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/PEG/PEG-T650C/

Philadelphia, Pa.: re: visor replacement:

The only Visor models that use rechargable batteries are the Visor Pro (currently $200) and the Visor Prism (Color model, $229 IIRC) and the Visor Edge ($169 in some places)

The rest of the visor models out there use alkaline batteries.

Rob Pegoraro: I think AAA batteries are going the way of the dodo. All the color-screen handhelds use internal rechargeables, and anything with wireless capability will *need* rechargeables.

Somewhere, USA: One nice thing about multiple desktops/window managers on Linux is having different ones for different users. If I log in as root I get gnome, as myself I get KDE. They look and act differently, so it makes it easy to remember who I logged in as.

Of course, if I've su'ed to root I don't get the different desktop, but I only do that from the command line anyway.

Btw, have you read "In the Beginning Was the Command Line" by Neal Stephenson? --wiredog

Rob Pegoraro: Good example. Although I find that most Linux distros already do a good job of reminding the user when he/she is logged in as root (i.e., able to execute any and every system command and option, even if it will hose the system). In the ones I've tried, the root user's environment consists of a bright-red desktop environment, decorated by icons of exploding bombs or firecrackers. Nice...

Somewhere, USA: For the person looking for a cheap and basic PDA, look at the used market. I'm still using the Palm Pro I bought in 98(?) when it came out. Runs for weeks on a pair of AA batteries.

His WinXP hasn't crashed since March? My Linux box hasn't crashed since I bought it in Jan 2000. Admittedly, I don't run it all the time, just when I use it. It's a workstation, after all. --wiredog

Rob Pegoraro: Oh, and here's our pal wiredog raising the ante on uptime.

Washington, D.C.: Rob - I'm thinking of coming back from the dark side & replacing my windows PC with a new Mac, and I'm curious what your take on OS X is. Is it reliable? Are there any major holes as far as OS X versions of applications being availables? Etc.

- an old neighbor of yours

Rob Pegoraro: Speaking of uptime--yes, OS X is reliable, but not perfect. I've yet to top two weeks of uptime, although I've only ever seen one actual system hang (the other interruption was a power outage). At this point, the one major gap in application availability I can think of is RealNetworks' RealOne, which isn't available on the Mac at all. (Why, I have no idea--you'd think that a company that complains about Microsoft's monopoly so much would try to undermine it by supporting competing platforms.)

College Park, Md.: re: RAM DIMM recognition

Okay. The RAM seems to work correctly, but I've noticed that certain applications like IE 5.1 and Netscape 4.7, when running with multiple windows open will unexpectedly quit with either a Type 2 or 3 error. I've allocated between 10000-15000K more RAM to each application, as well as increased the disk cache to 26172K, 32x the RAM installed. Additionally, I've increased the browser application cache to about 20MBs each.

Rob Pegoraro: Well, this certainly reminds me of why I use OS X these days :) I don't remember what a type 2 or 3 error means, but the fact that you only cited Web browsers makes me think that the problem is simply Web browsers aren't all that stable. That is something I've found to be true on every single OS I've used--I've seen Web browsers crash on everything from Linux to Windows to Mac OS X.

I can suggest regularly trashing the browser cache and the history file... have you tried that?

Somewhere, USA: re: lexmark ink: Rob,

I was told that the paper had a lot to do with water damage. Especially if you're doing digital photo printing.

Rob Pegoraro: I've found that better paper is a little more water-resistant, but if the ink is the old kind, you can still smudge it with a moistened fingertip. (This is a problem if you're in the habit of printing out recipes, for which you wouldn't want to use photo-grade paper at 50 cents/sheet and up...)

Washington, D.C.: Need to buy a new TV and was thinking of the Sony Wega. But the style seems to be old (3-4 years). Do they update them once a year? I know new technology has come out in the past 3 yrs.

Rob Pegoraro: Do you mean that brushed-aluminum look to the Sony Wega (pronounced "vega," don't ask me why they chose that spelling)? I haven't heard that Sony plans to change styles, but it wouldn't surprise me. Now that every other TV looks like that, Sony's gotta find some new way to distinguish its products.

As for the insides of Sony Wegas... well, there is this thing called digital TV that's happened in the past three years. Otherwise, in analog sets--no, not much has changed. It's what's called a mature technology, meaning you and I can stop worrying about purchased hardware going obsolete in six months. Enjoy it while you can!

Washington, D.C. follow up: OK, then recommend to me the best Palm PDA out there right now.

Thanks for the info.

Rob Pegoraro: Alright, if you insist:

* The best black-and-white Palm handheld is the Handspring Visor Platinum or Neo (if you think you can use the Springboard expansion slot) or Palm m105, if you're not interested in expandability but would prefer a smaller device. $150 either way.

* Best color Palm handheld is the Sony T615C, while you can get one. $300. (The Palm m130 and Handspring Visor Treo 90 are also good, but they lack the 615's high-res display.)

Rob Pegoraro: And with that, an hour's gone by. Thanks for all the questions--I'll be here again in a couple of weeks.

- R

washtech.com:

That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.

Stay tuned to Live Online:

Astrologer Charlene Lichtenstein at 6 p.m. EDT

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