I love this beasty. It is instant on and the display is pretty good - not in the Ipaq league, but the power consumption is low so you go for a week on a set of 4 AA nicads. The only annoying thing about the Ericsson MC218 is that the stylus sometimes pops out on its own - its held by a wire.
I just bought a Handspring for my son, but I know I have a better PDA with a decent little keyboard as well.
Speed isnt everything - EPOC is small and fast - I even enjoy my favourite Speecy game Lase Squad under a Z80 emulator. The mobile GPS system looks interesting.

This gem really performs well with my Ericsson SH888, except the dim screen which is more than just a nuisance. The open/close on and off switch has packed up and it cost me several sets of cells before I realised! (as well as the return postage) but....pull the cf card from my digital camera and I can e-mail a shot from a fell top. Well worth it at the price from www.clove.co.uk , forget the Psion! If you think that I have been unfair about the screen--then lay it down next to a Palm.

just buy it! who needs an Ipac or Psion anyway! tis a bargain and well worth buying.

Previously I was a 3A user but I bought my MC 218 from Clove and found the support fom Clove and Ericsson simply the best. Ericsson actually walked me thru setting up the personal internet with me on the phone and them telling me what to do till I made the connection. I work away from home a lot and it is ideal to pick up emails the internet calls are free provided they do not exceed 4 hours a month (cellnet package)

Never failed yet and the only foible I find is using the address book in look up mode which is limited in its text search (needs to be in the name field). I use the calendar and spreadsheet functions extensively.

Highly recommended. It comes with the all the Psion 5MX software but more in fact it is a Psion with an Ericsson badge and you get more software with the Ericsson. A real bargain.

Having lugged around a Nokia 9000, then 9110 I wanted something similar. Tried the Palm V but constantly hunting and pecking with the stylus on the letters was a pain, and setting it up for the internet took days rather than a couple of minutes. Whilst combined weight of Ericsson phone plus MC218 is more than Nokia its better handling, the fact that I don't need to carry the MC218 all the time, better memory and more software made it ideal. After fifteen months with it I cannot imagine living without it. I use it for mostly email and calendar functions, plus a couple of spreadsheets, the odd fax, nearly one thousand phone numbers (easily sorted, and can even find by phone number for reverse check). It has only "gone" on me once in that time and a soft boot solved that. I read elsewhere someone saying that next time they'd get the basic Psion 5mx as Psion support better than Ericsson, but the only time I needed Ericsson they were right on the ball, no problems. I cannot recommend it enough.

This is actually an Ericsson badged Psion 5mx which is far better than the MC16 I had previously. The MC16 was Windows CE2 and painfully slow. The MC218 comes with all the Psion software plus an infrared modem for my Erricson phone. The extra software gives me full internet access via my mobile including email connection to my isp and fax capability. Dont get excited about internet access using a mobile though as it is far too slow. The keyboard is great and I can edit my phone numbers on the Sim Card.