Government Computer News
Two Worlds Collide: PDAs and smart phones come together
PDAs and smart phones are starting to blend. As GCN Lab tests show, that can be good news or bad
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The definition of a personal digital assistant is in a state of flux, as digital organizers and cell phones start converging. Currently there are PDAs and there are smart phones. For now, we just call them handhelds as they continue to evolve into all-in-one mobile networking devices.
The GCN Lab recently looked at seven handhelds—some PDAs, some smart phones. Depending on how you work while away from the office, your best choice might be a BlackBerry, a Palm-style PDA, a cell phone or even more than one device.
What our evaluation shows is that PDAs by any name are experiencing growing pains as two mobile platforms merge. For instance, displays are getting better. Most devices in this roundup have bigger screens that you can set to display information in either portrait or landscape mode. Traditional PDAs, such as the Dell Axim X50v, even have 640-by-480 VGA LCDs.
Processor speeds and memory configurations are more robust. Volatile memory has been largely replaced with nonvolatile RAM, which keeps data safe even in the event of a power failure. More power and more memory means handhelds can handle more notebook computing-style tasks, such as editing documents.
So where are the growing pains? Battery life. Imagine if your handheld ran only as long as your notebook PC (or not even as long). As handheld devices add more features, those features suck battery power. Suddenly a handheld doesn’t seem like such a great idea. An ultraportable notebook and a cell phone may be better.
We like and recommend the latest Dell Axim, with its WiFi connectivity and multimedia capabilities, but you wouldn’t whip it out to place a phone call. As for smart phones, we’d say there are better BlackBerry devices you could buy than the 7250 we tested, but smart phones in general still need improvement. The best we’ve seen is the PalmOne Treo 650, which we reviewed last December [go to www.gcn.com and enter 444 in the Quickfind box].
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