To me, buying a PDA is like casual dating. At first, I can’t wait for my new PDA to arrive. Then when I get it, I am sure that this is the one I’m going to keep using and its going to make my life simpler. Then in 2 or 3 months, I stop using it for most tasks and it becomes an expensive MP3/video player. Until I find a newer model.

I’ve gone through about half a dozen PDAs of varying power culminating with my current unit, a Dell Axim X50v. It sits under my desk charging, and since my GPS now plays videos and MP3, is rarely undocked. There is software at Innobec that allows you to use your device as a second (or third) monitor. That’s right — you can have a tiny little monitor on your desk when you aren’t using the PDA for something else. The software makes Windows use it just like any other monitor.

First of all, the whole idea is cool and the geek factor of having your Windows desktop extend onto your PDA is way high. However, I’d suggest you get the 14 day trail version (the full version costs about US$15.00). Because while the geek/cool factor is high, for me the usability factor was low.

The installation of the PDA software was straightforward — you don’t install anything on the PDA itself. However, I was surprised that the screen the Sidewindow driver emulates is always at 1280×1024. Of course, your PDA doesn’t have that kind of resolution (does it?) so the software emulates the screen size. You can then pick a viewing window from 768×1024 to 240×480. This means you either have a tiny view on giant windows or a reasonable view on tiny windows. You can switch to landscape if you have a way to dock the PDA so that it makes sense (you can also connect to the PDA via WiFi, so maybe dock isn’t the right word here, but have some way to put the PDA in a landscape orientation).

The other problem is that the software tries to use your PDA’s best resolution (480×640 on the Axim). That’s good right? Well, it sounds good, but the performance when using 480×640 was so poor, the software was virtually unusable (for example, it was difficult to even find the mouse the cursor tracked so slowly). There is an option to use low resolution which makes the software fast enough (although, you won’t be running videos or games on it). I already have dual monitors, so I used this one as a 3rd monitor “below” the two main monitors. This worked OK, but caused some taskbar hiccups (I doubt that’s the problem of the Sidewindow software, though).

If I were the program’s authors, I’d include some little widgets that would run on the PDA screen. That would make the program much more useful. A clock (could be fancy with a world map, time zones, sun line, etc.), a system monitor, a mail notifier, stock ticker, etc. Then out of the box you’d have something useful to use your little screen for. As it is, it is mostly a novelty unless you have some small window you really need up on the handheld (for example, XMPlay, a media player worked well on the tiny screen).The Windows “Time/Date adjust dialog” is nice to put there as well, but isn’t really optimized for the little screen.

So should you rush out and get Sidewindow? Certainly the trial is worth it just to impress your geeky friends (if you have any). And if after 14 days you find you are really using it, $15 isn’t that much to pay. But I was glad I got to try before buy on this particular piece of geek gear.