Day of the PDA phones
Although it’s been rather quiet here in PDA-1, but we have been keeping tabs on the rumor mill. And here’s our take on the scene running up to 2006 - maybe y’all could call this yet another PDA-1 prediction:
PDA phones will continue their fierce stomp up the ranks amongst handheld devices and become the preferred personal gadget.
It’s all about doing multimedia these days, folks. And doing that with communication capabilities very close at hand. There is no doubt that digital audio/video players are mushrooming everywhere, and serve their niche markets very well.
Let’s not kid ourselves then: What would you carry as your single everyday device today that would more or less take care of your personal productivity and entertainment needs whilst mobile:
- Cellphone?
- PDA?
- Digital audio player?
- Digital video player?
- Portable gaming device?
- Digital camera?
We at PDA-1 would bet that none of us would carry only one of the above.
But you will consider carrying a PDA phone. Why? Although it might not serve as the best cellphone/PDA/digital audio player/digital video player/portable gaming machine/digital camera … a good PDA phone does do it all.
So stay tuned for the barrage of PDA phone releases promised earlier this year by the world’s most prolific handheld device manufacturer HTC - very much based on Windows Mobile 5.0 - and quite possibly, a new model each of palmOne’s (soon-to-be Palm, Inc. again) Treo and Mobile Manager sub-brands before 2005 comes to close.
P/S: We could also safely assume that new palmOne/Palm devices would be manufactured by HTC as well, as are the current Treos.