I thought it might be interesting to hear from those who know both OSs here. I really only know the Palm OS. What I "know" of the Blackberry OS comes only from watching patients enter data after they have an appointment with me and then create a new follow-up appointment. From what I've seen, these are reasons I would stay away from Blackberry devices:
1. With the Palm OS, I can enter a Contact into an Calendar slot without leaving the Calendar, using the Lookup function. It's even easier to do that with Datebk or Agendus. It's important to not have to type out the patient's name when I do this. That takes too long, and results in inconsistent data entry for the same patient, interfering with future searches (e.g., entering Patty Adams one day and Patricia Adams the other day). 2. With the help from either Datebk or Agendus, I can keep Contacts seen in Calendar linked to their records in Contacts, allowing me to view Contact information without leaving Calendar and searching for a name in Contacts. This also allows me to quickly call a patient with just a tap on a Calendar appointment slot, again without having to search for their name in Contacts, returning me to Calendar when the phone conversation ends. 3. With the help of either Datebk or Agendus, I can change the default appointment duration for all future data entry in Calendar to 30 minutes, making appointment creation easier. 4. Watching patients move around with the scroll wheel makes me really appreciate the Palm touchscreen. It has always seemed so cumbersome. 5. With help from third party applications, I can backup some or all of my Palm RAM to a storage card, as often as I want. I do it every 3 hours during business hours, producing multi-generational backups. From what I gather online, backups to storage cards won't be available until the 9xxx series of Blackberries. For now, you must rely on backing up to a computer. The list above is meant to spark a thread here the shows the advantages of one OS over the other, from those who know both OSs. I imagine some or all of what I said above about the Blackberry OS is incorrect, as I know only a little about it.
