PDA Phones Deliver All-in-One Convenience

My friend Jacob hasn't bought a mobile phone or a handheld device, for one good reason: "I'm waiting until I can get both in one," he says.

Jacob's wait may be over.

Kyocera's new Smartphone, announced Monday, cleverly combines both devices into a unit that I can wholeheartedly recommend. Qualcomm's (now Kyocera's) PDQ Smartphone was the first phone-PDA combo out of the gate, but it was too bulky and expensive. Expected to be available from major CDMA carriers within the next few months, the new Smartphone looks like a husky flip-style mobile phone, until you open it--then the monochrome screen fills with the Palm OS's familiar-looking rows of icons. This phone is a full-fledged Palm, complete with stylus and HotSync recharging cradle.

It's also noticeably smaller, lighter (7.3 ounces), and (with a street price of about $500) less expensive than the 9.8-ounce PdQ, which is priced from $700 to $800.

The Smartphone heralds a clutch of products designed to free mobile users from the need to carry both a phone and a personal digital assistant. Some will be all-in-one devices like the Smartphone; others will be add-ons that turn a handheld into a mobile phone. IDC analyst Kevin Burden says that even smaller hybrids will appear in the next year or two.

Get Smart

In my tests of a preproduction unit, I found Kyocera's Smartphone intelligent in several ways. For starters, you can tap an entry in your contact list, and then the phone will dial it. You can use the Smartphone as a speakerphone, too. A built-in speech recognition capability lets you assemble a voice-dial phone book so that you can "call mom" simply by speaking those words into the handset. Very cool.

If your service plan permits, you can access the Web via an HTML or Wireless Application Protocol browser, or you can run wireless Palm applications. The Smartphone also functions as a wireless fax modem. It supports CDMA PCS (1900-MHz), CDMA Cellular (800-MHz), and analog wireless protocols, which are used on such phone networks as Sprint PCS and Verizon.

The downside? The screen is smaller than a regular Palm display. I found the stock type readable, but I missed the conventional Palm's larger font. Still, by mobile phone standards the 5.6-by-2.6-by-0.9-inch Smartphone is huge; the size may put off phone users who aren't used to carrying a PDA. Kyocera rates the battery life at a so-so 4.5 hours of talk time or 110 hours of standby.