New PDA - the ASUS MyPal 626

I have been looking for something to replace my HP iPAQ hw6515 Personal Digital Aggravator (PDA). The old iPAQ is a bit underpowered, and HP was kind enough to orphan it at Mobile 2003 - backing away from their written commitment to provide an upgrade to Mobile 5.0.
I was looking around and wanted to see what Dell had available. Turns out Dell is selling ASUS PDAs (no cell phone). Interesting is that Dell wasn't distributing these under the Dell logo - they were selling the ASUS product via their website.
The reviews looked real good. I especially liked that the website and the advertisement said you were buying a Mobile 5.0 device with 128MB RAM. But, instead what they ship with Mobile 6.0 and 256MB RAM.
Why buy a PDA without a cell phone?
For me, to date, the integrated cell phone / PDAs were a compromise - the cell phone wasn't the quality of a nonPDA cell phone and you also the PDA seemed to lose some qualities in terms of usability.
Why not buy an iPhone?
I have seen an Apple iPhone and just like the MacBook Pros and the other MacOSX based computers that seem to be made on a different planet - or manufactured ten years from now and brought back via some Cupertino based time travel or time tunnel. Not sure why I don't move over to Apple, I guess like the Wendy's Restaurant TV commercials from 15 years ago - they would present the delicious Wendy's hamburger as choice A and a very plain burger was choice B, people in the commercial would for humorous effect select choice B. I seem to be stuck in choice B mode with Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Mobile :)
Connectivity
The ASUS a626 does come with WiFi for communications and they even throw in a version of Skype, bluetooth, and infrared. I haven't fired up the WiFi yet.
Fit and Finish
I have to say - the device looked good in the web advertisement, but the ads didn't do justice to the device, the stainless steel case, the large display - running Mobile in the default landscape direction really is sharp. The design, style, materials, and manufacture come close to the Apple iPhone and put the HP iPAQs to shame.
External Media Cards
Another nice feature is that the memory expansion slot supports SD/SDIO and MMC cards. A nice touch. I had an extra MMC 1GB card laying around unused from a failed Nokia 3650 that went awry. I dropped it in and was able to browse it. Despite the 256MB RAM (finally) installed in the ASUS a626, I still like to install the majority of application software onto the external memory card.
Install Applications
The Microsoft ActiveSync upgrade (version 4.5) that came with the ASUS was smart enough to recognize my HP iPAQ as well as the new device. I was able to install applications that I had procured for the iPAQ onto the ASUS.
Microsoft Reader (need to write an entry about moving to eBooks)
Tube 2 - a great subway and city street map application recommended to me by Scott Atwell.
Ilium ListPro - a great list management and todo list product - just made much better with an upgrade - problem is still no transaction level synchronization.
PocketLingo - a dictionary
Lygea HP-12C calculator emulator - what a great piece of software
Wordbook - another dictionary
Ilium eWallet - keeps important information secure