I've been a Palm user for many, many years. I'm also on my third PPC right now.
That palm tantra of palm being "simple" and PPC's "difficult" is complete BS.
Say, I want to write and read word documents on a PDA. On a PPC, I hook up my PPC through activesync or even just IR. I send the file, and I can read it. Simple as that. I don't need any special converters, special viewers to read my documents, its all built in.
PPC's allow me to multitask. Palms still don't. When I'm reading a book in MS reader, I can take notes in Notes, jot down my tasks, and have a pictureviewer on the backburner ready for when I need it.
How is palm simple? Everything takes a lot more effort to get it going. If I want to use Office format documents [Word, Excel PowerPoint] I have to install all kinds of special stuff, and even then convert it. That's not simple.
And as for battery life. While it used to be true that palms had better battery life in the old days, that's not true anymore. I used to be able to run my IIIE for two months on a set of AAA batterys. My IIIC for about one month, my M130.. I get about a week's worth of use. My Clie SL10.. 5 days.
See where I'm going with this? I bet a Tungsten E has the same batterylife as most PPC's