Toshiba Comes Calling With a New PDA

One of the next new products from the mobile communication unit of Toshiba will be a personal digital assistant that can also be used as a telephone, a company executive says.

Toshiba, which entered the competitive PDA market earlier this year, is on the way to unveiling a PDA with a built-in mobile phone during the second quarter of 2002 in the U.S., says Tetsuya Mizoguchi, president of Toshiba's Mobile Communication. The new product is part of Toshiba's plan to boost global marketing of its PDA line, which at present consists of one model.

"In Japan, cellular phones are more popular than PDAs, so people don't need PDAs with a telecommunication function, whereas in the U.S., PDAs are widely used," Mizoguchi says. Toshiba is planning to support CDMA2000 1x in the device, which should enable 2.5G speed data transmission.

PDAs with mobile phone modules and cellular phone handsets with PDA functions have been available in the U.S. from makers such as Handspring or carriers like Verizon Wireless since earlier this year. However, Toshiba aims to differentiate its product by building in support for faster networks.

The company also plans to market such PDAs in Europe, and in that case it will adopt General Packet Radio Service technology, another 2.5G standard, Mizoguchi says.

Toshiba, which targets its PDAs at business users, hopes to develop Java-enabled devices when PDA use spreads deeper into Japanese corporate markets, Mizoguchi says.

The company is also looking at battery life, a matter of crucial importance for mobile devices like PDAs. The company has been developing a fuel cell, which it expects to commercialize within two years.

"PDAs will be the first product to take the new battery," Mizoguchi says.