Feature: When a Plain PDA Is Best
Things aren't looking good for the traditional PDA.
Sony has stopped selling its Clie line of Palm OS-compatible handhelds. Toshiba has exited the Pocket PC market outside Japan. In 2004, shipments of traditional PDAs--those without wireless phone capabilities--declined for the third consecutive year, according to IDC (which, like PC World, is a part of International Data Group).
What's up with that? Put simply, smart phones and hybrid devices--which combine the functions of both cell phones and PDAs--are wooing users away from traditional handhelds.
But don't give up on our old friend just yet. Here are four reasons why PDAs are better traveling companions than hybrid PDA-phones.
Bigger Screen
Because a hybrid device needs to be compact, like a regular mobile phone, its display can be considerably smaller than a PDA's. For instance, the PalmOne Treo 650's color screen is 320 by 320 pixels, compared to the 640-by-480-pixel screen of Hewlett Packard's IPaq Hx4705.
In real terms, this means viewing just about anything--contact information, photos, multimedia content, GPS maps--is better on most PDAs than on most hybrid devices or smart phones. The larger screen makes PDAs, in my opinion, significantly more useful. For example, you could keep photos of a new product stored on an HP IPaq Hx4705, then easily show the photos to a prospective client. On a Treo 650 or other hybrid device, your picture wouldn't have nearly as much impact.
Better Notebook Alternative
Need to create or edit Microsoft Office documents on the run? A PDA is much better at this than your average hybrid device.
Windows Mobile PDAs come with pocket versions of Word, Excel, Outlook, and Internet Explorer. Many Palm OS PDAs include Dataviz's Documents To Go, which provides compatibility with many Microsoft Office file types. When outfitted with a full-sized, external keyboard, a PDA can become a miniature notebook, to some degree. You can work on your Office documents just about anywhere; I've edited articles in a doctor's waiting room, for instance.
Admittedly, the Treo 650 and other hybrid devices let you create and edit Office files, too. But a PDA's larger screen makes working with spreadsheets and other Office files far more feasible.
Also, unlike most PDAs, many hybrid devices don't let you add a full-sized, external keyboard. Would you like to type more than a few words on a smart phone's tiny keys? I didn't think so.
For more about PDAs as notebook alternatives, read my July 2004 column.
More Memory, More Applications
Some current PDAs offer more than twice the user-available memory of their hybrid competitors. For example, the PalmOne Tungsten T5 has 215MB of user-available memory, compared to 23MB for the company's Treo 650.
So what, you ask? The more internal memory in your gadget, the more space there is for essential PDA applications like Vindigo for current entertainment and restaurant info; AvantGo for news, entertainment, and more; Zagat To Go restaurant guides; and The Leonard Maltin Movie & Video Guide for movie reviews.
Sure, you can store such apps on flash memory cards, and many hybrid devices have flash memory card readers. But apps run slower on flash memory cards than when stored in internal memory. And making sure you've got the right card, at the right time, can be a pain.
More Advanced Features
Some PDAs simply have much more advanced features than their hybrid counterparts.
For example, Dell's Axim X50v Pocket PC includes a dedicated graphics processor (the Intel 2700, with 16MB of graphics memory) for smooth game playing and video viewing. The X50v is also notable for its expandability, being one of the few Pocket PCs today with both Secure Digital and CompactFlash card slots. If a hybrid device exists in the U.S. market offering either of these features, I don't know about it.
Adding It All Up
I'm not oblivious to the charms of a hybrid PDA-phone, mind you. Having wireless e-mail, Web browsing, and PDA functionality in one gadget is extremely compelling. For more on the pros and cons of PDAs and smart phones or hybrids, read my August 2004 column.
And frankly, I believe the traditional PDA's days are numbered. As components become smaller and cheaper to produce, handheld devices will be able to do even more than they can today. It's only a matter of time before there's an Apple IPod-like device that's also a camera, video player, cell phone, and PDA.
But for now, there's still plenty of life left in the PDA. Enjoy it while you can.
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