I was really excited when I first heard about AvantGo. It sounded like a revolutionary idea: Updated web pages right on your PDA. Free of charge too! After checking the web site (www.avantgo.com), I determined that this wasn't some sort of scam or pyramid scheme (i.e. alladvantage.com), and I downloaded the software. It was a simple process, and It installed and configured very, very easily.

Now that I had installed it and everything, I signed up for some "channels", or the content that you want to be updated every time you Sync your PDA. I found a bunch of sites I liked, and started it up.

Now, my PDA is an old Handspring Visor, clearly not the best on the market. The old serial cradle had always been slow, but with this, it ground down to a halt. Now, my PC is a brand-new Dell OptiPlex, clearly it wasn't my computers fault. There is a ton of data going into your PDA, and it takes awhile. I can live with that.

So AvantGo ended up working great the first time. I got all sorts of info on my PDA. It was great! Then I tried to do it again. Beep! "Cannot find AvantGo network". Hmmmm.... I quickly open up Internet Explorer and go to the web site. It comes up just fine. I try again. Beep! Same result. 15 minutes later, it works normally again. Now, this would be fine if it happened once. But every day? I've talked to friends who say that this happens "all the time". So why should I inject the extra hassle into my life? Don't I already have enough stuff to do to deal with weather or not AvantGo is going to work in the random 5 minutes that I choose to update it? I think I do.

Recommended: No