Time for a smaller handbag...I finally got a smartphone

The Technomage and I had resisted buying smartphones, even though we do like gadgets. But we have finally succumbed and have each bought an Acer Liquid Gallant Duo.

As I result, I've been looking at various things I normally carry round with me and wondering what can be left out of my handbag.

The camera (which has mixed reviews online) has already produced a nice snap of one of my little 2" bears even without messing around with the settings, so my Canon A495 isn't likely to be coming with me every trip out of the house (and for special events, I'm more likely to take my bigger, zoomier, camera).

Also out of my handbag, obviously, is my old phone as I can pick up its calls via the Acer's second sim slot. And my poor old Palm TX will semi-retire, replacing its predecessor (a Palm Zire 71) on my desk. It will now have a rather dull existence, primarily used for converting between imperial and metric units (something I seem to have to do a lot of) using its excellent calculator, imported from an even older PDA, a Handspring Visor Deluxe.

We've found decent mp3 apps for Android, but my wonderful Sansa Clip+ (actually a Sansa doesn'tClip+ as I broke the clip) will remain in use, as its battery lasts far longer and it is so tiny and a joy to use.

I installed an app called Swiss Army Knife - but it doesn't feature a knife or scissors, so my Victorinox Minichamp is safe.

But the app does include tools for magnifying using the Acer's camera and can also measure and turn on a 'flashlight' so maybe I don't need to carry round the spare pair of reading specs, tape measure, loupe or torch....

There'll be no need for the spare batteries for the phone and camera (though perhaps a need for a spare for the Acer instead). And maybe I won't need a notebook and pen, given all the different ways of recording notes in the smartphone (my primary method will, I expect, involve using the trusty old Palm handwriting recognition system, Graffiti, thanks to an Android app that I was very pleased to find. It's a joy to be able to write without having to watch my fingers trying to hit little keys).

Having a dual sim phone like the Acer seems the ideal solution for a first smartphone.

We don't have reliable mobile reception at home (ie no reception away from the upstairs windows) and spend more time near computers and landlines than out and about, so I don't often use a mobile to call people. My typical bill on Virgin pay-as-you-go, paid monthly by direct debit, is somewhere between £1 and £4.50 - so having a contract would be a waste of money.

Thanks to the dual sims, I can keep my existing sim to receive calls from people I know without having to transfer my number or commit to a particular data provider/package. I can then try various pay-as-you-go deals depending on who has a good deal for what I'll be doing that month. Giffgaff is this month's choice - a £12 goody bag (actually costing a few pounds less thanks to introductory discounts) gets a month's unlimited internet plus loads of calls and texts.

Although we didn't really need the smartphones we were both keen to get new PDAs, even though we did already have an Android tablet. I've had various Palm OS devices over the last 13 or 14 years - the Technomage started with a Sharp digital diary many years before that, before getting a Psion about 20 years ago.

My current Palm TX was bought secondhand two years ago after I stupidly lost an identical one. It has most of the functions of a smartphone apart from the actual phone, but development of and for the Palm OS has long been abandoned and it's feeling rather long in the tooth. Nevertheless, up until getting the Acer this week I've used it every day - I'm still addicted to various games on it (sadly mostly ones that don't seem to be available for any other platform) and have a lot of information stashed away in Palm memos and in the fantastic List program. List is a very simple Palm tool that's perfect for - as the name implies - listing things. I use mine for everything from my bear collection to keeping track of which books I've read in a series. A version is available for Android, though I haven't got it to display properly yet.

We've both wasted a ridiculous amount of time over the last few days playing with the phones on wi-fi and downloading apps. As the Technomage has a particular interest in databases (!), he's been very clever at importing data from List and various other Palm database programs. He's even tranferred his CD database, which started on a mainframe in the 1980s and has been on all his handhelds since the Psion. I've been much less focused this week, though I did waste an hour today trying to connect to the internet vai giffgaff before realising that our signal by the window here at home is only 2G and that was why the internet isn't available.... I've still got a lot to learn!