These PDA models won’t end up in the sock drawer

iPAQ 2210 — $400, Hewlett-Packard. Given the choice of whether my PDA would support WiFi or Bluetooth, I’d much rather have the former. It’s easier to set up and more useful. The iPaq 2210 (which you may also see as the 2215; they’re identical), however, comes with the latter. The idea is that you can use the Bluetooth to wirelessly sync with your main computer, to dump contact data into a cell phone, to use a cell phone for outgoing data calls or to print using a Bluetooth-enabled printer. However, Bluetooth’s critics — I am now a card-carrying member — say it’s finicky, hard to configure and unreliable. I spent two hours trying to make the Bluetooth syncing ability work, even doing some time on the phone with an HP specialist. The PC to which I was trying to sync was using the USB-based transmitter that comes with Microsoft’s Bluetooth keyboard and mouse product. I never was able to make it work, though it’s hard to say whether the fault was with the HP or the Microsoft products. However, using a $169 Socket WLAN card, I jumped onto my home WiFi network effortlessly. Memo to HP: Lose the Bluetooth, replace with WiFi. Overall, the 2210 is a slick little PDA. It’s slightly thicker than the Toshiba, at just over half an inch, though it weighs the same. It has the same 3.5-inch screen, though the 2210 is dramatically brighter than the Toshiba. Even in a bright room, the screen was easy to see.