You dial an 800 phone number and hold the gizmo up to the phone to transfer your mail. It is painless, although a bit slow. You can set it up to collect your mail from your existing POP account. Unlike the units mentioned so far, it has an almost usable six-inch wide typewriter keyboard. It also has address book and calendar functions, although those aren't as good as what you can find with the Pilot.
Batteries last several weeks .
I would take the Telmail on the road with me, particularly when I travel outside the US or in places where I know that RJ11 jacks will be hard to find. The monthly service charge isn't onerous, and while you can't receive attachments on the thing, you wouldn't want to stand around at a payphone all day while waiting for them to download either. Finally there is Windows CE . I tried an HP 360LX which has a PC card slot for adding wired or wireless modems or video adapters and an almost usable seven-inch keyboard. There are several dozen devices to choose from, including ones that look a lot like the Pilot and ones with bigger keyboards and color screens.