Thinking about going paperless, I have seen some palmone Zire 21's for around $40-60.
Would this make a good first pda for caching? I will be using cachemate and gsak.
All opinions are welcome.

I've been doing paperless caching with an old Palm III. Only complaint I have with only having 2 MB is that I can't really load the latest cache logs. With 8 MB it should be ok IMHO. I'm probably going to pick up one of the blemished Tungsten E's or Zire 31's from overstock. the 31 and Tungsten have a SD slot, for additional memory for things like Mapopolis.

I agree with tyrithe, the 8mb Z21 will do fine for geocaching. If you are also planning to use other software, esp. mapping, I would recommend looking at the Z31 or other units which have expansion slots. But if you are considering a used unit, keep in mind that the Z21 rechargeable battery is not user replaceable, so if the unit is a couple of years old it may have a limited lifespan left.

Charlie and Tyrithe are right - 8MB is enough for 1000 caches with 9 logs each in Cachemate.

Charlie has a good point about the batteries, but if as long as you can get 10 hours out if it per charge, you should be ok. My old i705 also has non-user-replaceable batteries, and it still lasts for days at a time.

I did not know the batteries, was not user replaceable, I have seen some blemished ones at palmone's web site. That might be the way to go. I only plan on using it for caching and I might keep less than 30 phone numbers in it ( I don't know that many people)
Thanks for all the advice!!

With limited memory you might want to consider what software to use. Up to the first of this year I only had a Palm IIIxe with 8 megs. I used Plucker. I now have a Clie with 16 megs interal and a couple of 256Meg Memory sticks. But I still use the IIIxe to carry in the "field" while geocaching. I just checked and using 1000 geocaches, with 10 logs cachemate requires 3.8 megs. Where as Plucker only require 2 1/2 megs of memory. If I set Plucker to grab all the images (which cachemate can't do) the plucker file is 5 1/2 megs. Geocacher University has a page about Geocaching Without Paper, which talks about using GPX Spinner. I actually use GSAK most of the time, however I do have home grown program which I use when I am in a hurry, it has few features than GSAK, but get the data to the palm faster.

So my views
Cachemate
Pros allows you to resort geocache information while in the field, actually record finds directly in it.
Cons takes more memory, and faster processor.
Plucker
Pros uses less memory, can run decently on older slower Palms, can have the pictures in cache descriptions loaded and therefore visible while in the field,can be used to hold non-geocaching webpages (I currently have about 8 e-book in the sony)
Cons more steps to get information in palm, you must decide on how you want the caches indexed while at the PC.

Your wants/needs will determine which is best for you.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: AllenLacy,

Thanks Allen I will give all the info you gave me and consider it all.