Are PDA's always rubbish and slow you down?

[Brain Fury]

yes I have to say the pdas aren't the best on the market,dispite what the bosses think.always having to re connect them on collection,which we havnt got time for,and they don't charge well in the van,if at all.and if they fail to scan on collections its our fault not the scanners and we get threatened with being taken off s/as,and as for the reminders to get the special done my 1,someones got too much time to play at sending them out me thinks.the other couriers must look at ours and piss themselves!!!

Don't think "the bosses" think the PDAs are the best on the market either

[OnAFlyer]

What Clash and cweg said - - -
I’d hate to go back to crappy little sheets of paper.

My only real complaints about the PDA are firstly that it’s like carrying a house brick around in your pocket and secondly (and most importantly) the lack of battery power.
I’ve no charger in the van and towards the end of the duty am sometimes forced to warm the thing on the heater to extract a little more juice from the battery.

Oh, and one further thought, when the power drops right down you keep getting messages telling you that the battery level is critical (which you already know, thank you very much!).
Does anyone know how to turn those effing messages off short of lobbing the thing out of the window at a passing courier’s van?

Have you asked for new batteries? Ours were like that, but once we had the batteries replaced they easily last a 4hr delivery with 50%+ left.

It does suggest they weren't new when we got them though, all the batteries were knackered not just one or two.

[janitor]

Have used ones with new batteries they were crap to, the cradles are of little use as they break or don't charge, still say they got them free with a packet of corn flakes, mind you the free gifts in cornflakes were usually better quality.

[bustedflush]

What Clash and cweg said - - -
I’d hate to go back to crappy little sheets of paper.

My only real complaints about the PDA are firstly that it’s like carrying a house brick around in your pocket and secondly (and most importantly) the lack of battery power.
I’ve no charger in the van and towards the end of the duty am sometimes forced to warm the thing on the heater to extract a little more juice from the battery.

Oh, and one further thought, when the power drops right down you keep getting messages telling you that the battery level is critical (which you already know, thank you very much!).
Does anyone know how to turn those effing messages off short of lobbing the thing out of the window at a passing courier’s van?

Right, they are very robust and survive a lot of punishment as they are designed to do. On the minus side, as the quoted post here says, when the battery goes below 25% or whatever you get this irritating twatting beep, all the while, to tell you so. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but this b*stard beeping and lighting up of the screen exacerbates the problem by draining more power...
Then the screens are almost invisible in bright light. You also don't have an easy 'lock' function on them to prevent that 'honk-honk-honk' when you're walking and something happens to hit any of the buttons like a pen in your pocket. WHY can't they simply have a one-slide or press large quick- lock button, like every other mobile device?

[wacko74]

Considering the morons in charge can't even provide us with elastic bands that are fit for purpose what hope have we got that they'll get it right with something as technically complicated as a PDA?!!

[DirtyHarry]

Yes, PDAs are rubbish on the whole, and yes, they slow you down considerably. We lurrrvvvee parcels.

[malcolm3011]

PDAs are a pain if you are using one on an HCT delivery as you have no way to charge them and with the delivery span this time of year almost 5 hours the battery level is critical four hours into the delivery so have to resort to delivery cards again

[fly-catchers]

Do you have to type the customers name in when they open the door or after they have signed? Everytime I get a delivery to my house they ask my name after I have handed the PDA back.
I guess when using them you will need to leave your bundle of letters back on the bike (still using those - just!). As holding the bundle, parcel(s) and trying to use the PDA sounds a bad idea. True using the scrappy paper in rain is bad. But wearing glasses and having less than 20/20 nearsight vision in the rain makes typing out peoples name not something I am looking forward to! Must embrace progress though!!

[SpacePhoenix]

MCs use the same PDAs for for us in MCs it's even worse as sometimes we might each be scanning 1,000 items in a shift, after about an hour they're often down to 55-60% battery. No point in ordering new batteries as collections just seem to nick the new ones after we get them and give us their old and f*cked ones.

[arnold cheshire]

MCs use the same PDAs for for us in MCs it's even worse as sometimes we might each be scanning 1,000 items in a shift, after about an hour they're often down to 55-60% battery. No point in ordering new batteries as collections just seem to nick the new ones after we get them and give us their old and f*cked ones.

well they should order new batteries for all of them

[El-Bandito]

They are not fit for purpose. Anything that still uses Windows 98 is at least 10 years old. RM must have got them as a job lot from TNT.

[arnold cheshire]

They are not fit for purpose. Anything that still uses Windows 98 is at least 10 years old. RM must have got them as a job lot from TNT.

we had our first ones about june 2008

[OnAFlyer]

Have used ones with new batteries they were crap to, the cradles are of little use as they break or don't charge, still say they got them free with a packet of corn flakes, mind you the free gifts in cornflakes were usually better quality.

Crap as in what, the battery still not lasting? If so then you weren't given new batteries! Ours last easily 4hrs+ with plenty of battery left. Before that they were dying after 3hrs.

[Mr Rush]

The PDAs are far better than paper (especially since trackeds don't have peel-off stickers). The downsides on the other hand are so numerous a million PDA batteries would have come and gone out of existence if we were to list them all. They can survive falling down a flight of stairs but seem to have crashed every time I take one out of my bag.

Funny thing, back in June I was waiting for mine to reboot and noticed there were two new text messages. "25/12/12: Merry Christmas from Lisa and John"

[fishtank]

MCs use the same PDAs for for us in MCs it's even worse as sometimes we might each be scanning 1,000 items in a shift,

In a shift?
I've usually scanned about 1,000 specials and tracked in the first two hours.