In my opinion, a good PDA is miles ahead of the lame stuff they call "smartphones" these days. My good old Dell Axim X50v (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED PDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111one) can outperform even the best lame slow WM6-based smartphones. Why? Today's so-called PDA market focuses on mobile connectivity while slacking off on processor, RAM, graphics, and local connectivity (WLAN/WiFi). The Axim X50v, on the other hand, was created at the peak of the "good PDA" era, when companies actually focused on these things.
The Axim X50v has a 624MHz XScale processor (your average not-so-smart-phone has a max of around 300-400MHz). It also has the Intel 2700G mobile graphics accelerator, improving video playback and also some 3d apps, but mainly video playback. The X50v has WiFi, it's only Wireless-B, but it was made back in 2004-2005, so that's understandable (modern "PDA's" with wireless-B are not, they should've evolved by now, sadly that isn't the case). The Axim also has a top-notch screen. It's true VGA (480x640 in portrait mode, sideways it is 640x480) and with special programs you can resize the GUI to maximize screen area. It's also fairly large, I think like 3 inches. Normal phone-PDAs only have 2" or so 320x240 screens that really cram and malform web pages (with the Axim you can pretty much browse desktop versions of Web pages, the only issue is pocket IE's formatting issues).
The only issue is battery life, I haven't had too much of an issue at college, but I don't use it constantly. I have two batteries just in case, and I made an external charger to run it off of AA batteries.
There's a hacked WM6 image for the X50v and it works really well, so you're not stuck on the outdated WM2003 that it came with. Since it's hacked, I can't tell you anything more about that. The Axim does run WM6 better than most "WM6-designed" smartphones though.
One issue, Dell no longer makes the Axim. Yeah, that's kind of a problem, but my friend got one on eBay used but in great condition. It had WM6 pre-loaded and came with a ton of accessories for just around $150.
I personally highly recommend it (as I own one, duh) because it's pretty much the best PDA (not just me, many people think this) ever made, rivaled only by some HP PDA's that also have the 624MHz chip and VGA screen.
I use mine for:
-MP3's (good sound quality, bass boost, equalizer, SRS Wow effects/SRS TruBass)
-Videos (TCPMP plays pretty much everything)
-Internet (Pocket IE isn't great, but it works)
-Documents (Creates/edits notes, text, etc, though the Pocket Word app is fairly limited)
-Spreadsheets (Pocket Excel)
-Notes (you can draw on the screen, you can write on the screen, good for taking notes during class)
-Calendar/Schedule (you can set up appointments, such as your classes, meetings, etc)
-VNC (have VNC Server on your desktop, then you can remote-control your main PC whenever you need it)
-File management (can copy files from network shares to your card, not sure you can do that on iPhone/iTouch)
-Photo viewing (there are some good apps out there for viewing, resizing, cropping, and managing photos, the Axim has an SD slot so you can put your camera card in)
-Instant Messaging (I could only find an AIM client, but it worked pretty well)
-Google Maps (works very well!)
-Games/emulators
