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I’ve had a Dell Axim x51v for five years now. I’m on my fifth battery, sixth case, and have wanted to stop carrying around a PDA and a cell phone for a while, but offerings in a cell phone package have always been less than what I have. A full color 640x480 display, with removable storage and easy swap batteries. Were it not for being able to easily tether the cell phone to the PDA, I’m sure it would have hit eBay by now.

And admittedly, it’s fun sometimes to be at the coffee shop or at the airport and watch iEnvy when people notice that I’m watching full video on my PDA, or browsing the web faster than they can.

My netbook somewhat replaced the PDA at times, but for me, it’s just a wee bit too large to haul around all the time. Yeah, I know, smaller than a book, but still, I wanted a cell phone that could do everything I could five years ago, and up till now, I’ve still been disappointed at the marketplace.

I’ve finally got hope though - the specs for the Nexus One from Google are quickly being leaked, and it looks like I can finally have my cake and eat it too. We’ll see when it gets closer to launch date what the price is, and what the contract reads. But it still bothers me that smartphone technology took this long to come back to the level that PDAs had so long ago.

Then you want the HTC Touch Pro 2. I bought one last month to replace my aging Samsung i760. It runs Windows Mobile, 800x480 color screen, replaceable battery, slide-out keyboard, MicroSD car slot, 3.2 MP camera and video recorder (pretty good), built-in GPS so you can use Google Maps or Live Maps (or even buy a mapping package), use voice commander (built-in) to tell the phone where you want to go and it will plot your directions, show the traffic conditions, and monitor your progress.

I use the Verizon Network here in the US, but the phone has a SIM card slot that is easy to unlock (just call Verizon) and when I'm overseas I can use my overseas SIM cards. No longer have to juggle my US phone/PDA and a second phone for talking - one phone can control/contain all my contacts.

Definitely does everything your Axim 51v does, and of course can tether to a laptop. Heck, I run WMWiFiRouter on mine and it becomes a WiFi hotspot with two screen clicks. It is my sole access to the Internet; right now it's my WiFi router at the house, sitting in my office as I'm typing on my laptop in the living room.

HTC TouchFlo 3D is a great UI for the phone, but I got hooked on SPB's Mobile Shell a year ago and still use it. Amazingly customizable UI manager, great tools built-in, makes the phone easier to use and configure than the iPhone.

And it still has the ability to natively edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files - it is Windows Mobile, after all! I even played with the TV out (optional $20 cable) - I can show my 640x480 movies on any TV, and even display PowerPoint presentations from my phone. VERY slick, very cool!

And yes, it does play audio files - the 16 GB microSD card I have installed right now has about 1200 songs, a dozen movies, and 60 eBooks (which read very nicely on the big, bright screen).