How can I have fun with my handheld?

There's a huge library of games for both Palm and Windows Mobile devices, from basic puzzle and word contests to first-person shooters and real-time strategy titles. Sporting a high-resolution VGA screen and a multimedia accelerator, the O2 Xda Flame is a hot pick for gamers. We'll plug CNET Asia Downloads here as a good source for further information on software.

More and more PDAs today have built-in digital cameras so that you can take snapshots on the fly. Typically, handhelds have 1- or 2-megapixel cameras. You won't get the same image quality as with a dedicated digital camera, but they're good if you want to take a quick shot to email to family or friends. Some even come with autofocus for sharper images. The Asus P735 is such an example.

Even without a camera, you can transfer files from your PC and convert your handheld into a portable electronic photo album. The Palm LifeDrive even lets you create slideshows with background music.

Load up a memory card with tunes, and plug in headphones--you've turned your organizer into an MP3 player. Any current handheld will be able to play MP3 files right out of the box. In Windows Mobile devices, this is done through Windows Media Player, which bears a very similar interface to the desktop version.

Because of their large displays, handhelds make very good portable video players as well. The fact that external storage cards like SD media are very cheap these days also helps. But unlike dedicated PVPs, handhelds will not play many video formats natively. The Core Pocket Media Player (TCPMP) is an application with both Windows Mobile and Palm OS versions that solves this problem. This program will allow you to run many popular formats, even XviD and DivX, without having to convert them on the desktop first. While TCPMP is free and can be downloaded from many sites, its commercial variant is the latest version, and has been renamed CorePlayer Mobile.

Both Palm and Windows Mobile support e-book readers. Reading on the screen of a PDA is naturally a different experience from doing so on a paperback, but a good story can pull you in, no matter what the format. You should also take a look at services such as AvantGo, which delivers Web sites to your handheld or your smart phone for free. Each time you sync, AvantGo will load the latest version of your favorite Web sites such as the New York Times, Rolling Stone, or CNET News.com. An AvantGo account also allows you to sync RSS feeds so you can get updates from any site or blog which has that feature set up.