Cyberbank Readies Hybrid PDA/Cell Phone

Cyberbank plans to release its PC-Ephone, a hybrid cell phone and PDA, in the United States and Japan before the end of the year.

The PC-Ephone made its debut at Comdex Fall 2000. Resembling a wider version of a conventional personal digital assistant (PDA), the device was scheduled to ship in the United States in early 2001. Cyberbank missed its forecast, but now expects to ship the device priced at about $1000 in the U.S. market, more expensive than the $800 it cited at introduction.

"We are planning to launch the PC-Ephone in Japan in October and in the United States before the end of the year," says Chae Jeong-Min, chief technical officer with Cyberbank Japan, a subsidiary company of the South Korean parent.

In Japan, the device will ship as a PDA only, lacking cell phone functions, Chae says. Getting approval from cellular carriers takes too long, so Cyberbank is eliminating that function from the Japanese versions. However, users can still insert a wireless modem into the PC-EPhone's Compact Flash card slot, and get wireless Internet access.

Pushing Partnerships

Merging PDAs and cell phones has proved a bit of a tough sell. Handspring just drastically lowered the price of the VisorPhone add-on for its PDA. Analysts indicate that consumers haven't yet embraced combination devices.

In the United States, Cyberbank's device will be launched with services from Verizon and Sprint PCS, Chae says.

"We started final series approval with Verizon [in June] and will start with Sprint this September," Chae says. The Verizon version will support CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and AMPS (American Mobile Phone Service) while the Sprint version will support its U.S. PCS network.

Cyberbank targets the PC-Ephone at vertical markets. For example, an online share trading service has already contracted to market the unit as a dedicated wireless trading system, and Korean Air plans to use it as a wireless guide for tourists visiting Korea.

Competitive Pricing

Chae says the PC-Ephone will be competitive with existing and recently launched PDAs. Not only is the $500 target price for Japan cheaper than Toshiba's recently launched PDA and many others on the market, but the PC-Ephone has a larger, higher resolution display.

The display, a 4-inch, 256-color, Poly-Silicon TFT touch-panel display dominates the face of the device and provides a very sharp image with its 640-by-480-pixel (VGA) resolution. In comparison, Toshiba's new Genio has a 3.5-inch, 65,536-color, reflective TFT screen with 240-by-320 resolution. Sony's latest Clie PDA has a 65,536-color, frontlit TFT display with 320-by-320-pixel resolution.

The device is based on a 206-MHz Intel StrongArm processor, has 32MB of memory, USB and infrared IrDA interfaces, and a type II Compact Flash card slot. The battery provides enough power for around two hours of wireless Web browsing.