How do you find the perfect handheld PDA? With PDAs and cell phones on the fast path to convergence, making the right choice is more difficult than ever.
I've relied on both PDAs and cell phones for over 10 years and I've worked with many converged devices during the last year. Based on that experience, I've developed some criteria for my next purchase. Read this before you buy your next phone, PDA--or combination thereof.
The BlackBerry 5810 helped to refine my thinking about PDAs. The hardware, software, and network have to be just right for a converged device to satisfy the masses. The beauty of all BlackBerries is their thumb-operated keyboard (or thumbboard). As long as a BlackBerry is in touch with its network, e-mails come and go 24/7. For situations that demand timely responses to e-mail, the thumbboard is ideal for carving out quick responses and managing heavy e-mail loads.
There are several alternatives to a thumbboard for message and data input. The most popular of these are the stylus-based devices that do some sort of handwriting recognition. Although I've met a few people who are incredibly proficient with styli and recognition engines like Palm's Graffiti, most experienced recognition engine users still wrestle with them. For most of us, stylus-based input pales in comparison to a thumbboard.
Another alternative is to take a device that doesn't have a thumbboard (or keyboard) and add one. For my Compaq iPaq, HP Jornada, and even my Motorola i85s cell phone, I have collapsible full-size keyboards. I have played with add-on thumbboards too. (Find me at any trade show and I will have a collapsible keyboard and the device that matches it.) The keyboard is perfect for note-taking and document creation. Regardless of whether your converged device (or PDA) has a thumbboard, you should make sure that you can accessorize it with a collapsible keyboard for those times when only touch typing will do. That said, I would not recommend a collapsible keyboard as a substitute for a thumbboard. There will be plenty of times where you don't want to carry the extra keyboard. The same goes for a thumbboard add-on. Ideally, a thumbboard needs to be built-in.
The final thumbboard substitute is the phone's keypad. There is probably nothing more laborious than using a phone's keypad for text entry. I think a thumbboard is essential for your next device--at least until PDAs are capable of voice recognition.
Thumbboard and phone keypad
If the device doubles as a phone, then a phone keypad is mandatory as well. That's another thing that the BlackBerry 5810 taught me. One of the cool things about converged devices is that the built-in contact manager can be used to initiate a phone call simply by choosing the person you want to call, and selecting "call" from a menu or pressing the call button. But when the person you want to call isn't in the contact manager, and you don't have a regular phone keypad (the 5810 has only a thumbboard), it won't be long before frustration sets in. A point that the 5810 further drives home is the need for an illuminated keypad. It's difficult enough to dial a phone number with the 5810's thumbboard. It's impossible to use it as a phone in the dark.
Offering both a thumbboard and an illuminated phone keypad while keeping the package compact and lightweight will present some design challenges to manufacturers. In its 9290 Communicator (click for a 3D view), Nokia has solved the problem with a clamshell design that has a thumbboard and brilliant color display on the inside, and a traditional phone keypad with a lower-resolution monochrome LCD display on the outside. I've handled the 9290 at trade shows but have yet to try one for an extended period of time.
I like the 9290's design. Readers and colleagues with whom I've discussed the topic think it's too big and say I'm crazy (see letter). True, for a handheld device, it is big. But when I show them what I carry now to solve the same problem and how I need multiple wireless accounts, they scratch their chins and agree that I have a point. For example, try carrying a phone and a BlackBerry, or a phone and an iPaq with a collapsible keyboard and a separate wireless WAN adapter.
With its Treo line of PDA/phones, Handspring has also tackled the problem with a unique design that has both a thumbboard and a phone keypad, but the latter is presented on the Treo's display as opposed to having physical buttons. I'm undecided about virtual keypads. While my inclination is to say "Yuk!," Brandi Cook, who does PR for Microsoft's handheld group, asked me to reserve judgment until I've spent some time with a converged device from T-Mobile that runs the phone edition of Microsoft's PocketPC. The device looks like a lot of other PocketPC-based PDAs except that it has an antenna and, like the Treo, displays its phone keypad on the device's primary display rather than using physical buttons. Still, it has no thumbboard.
One advantage that both Palm-based devices (like the Treo) and PocketPC-based devices do have over something like the Nokia 9290 is their operating systems. Both Palm's PalmOS and Microsoft's PocketPC have a bit more to offer in the way of existing applications, development tools, and ease of integration with enterprise applications like Lotus Notes and Exchange Server. Not that the Psion-based heritage behind the Symbian OS won't serve the Nokia 9290 well. It's just that Symbian is relatively unproven as a handheld OS in the United States.
One thing the Symbian OS does have going for it is its tight integration with the mobile version of Java (known as Java 2 Mobile Edition or J2ME). So far as virtual machines for mobile devices go, Java has garnered the lion's share of interest from phone manufacturers when compared to something like Microsoft's equivalent (called .Net Compact). Through the Java Community Process (JCP), the various specifications for the mobile forms of Java have had years to mature.
Since most phones and other mobile devices like the BlackBerry will conform to the same JCP specifications, there is a degree of cross-vendor, cross-device, and cross-phone portability that will give developers big targets to hit. In turn, enterprises will find it easier to roll out mobile applications without dictating which device everyone has to carry. Java's traction in the mobile market is improving too. PalmSource (providers of the Palm OS) just announced a deal with Java Virtual Machine provider Insignia that will guarantee the presence of a JVM in phones and PDAs that run the recently announced version 5 of the Palm OS. In addition, Sun and the other participants in the JCP just announced a series of improvements to the specification for mobile Java.
So, until we see .Net Compact get the same sort of traction, or, at the very least, see the phone edition of PocketPC show up in more phones, another minimum requirement for your next mobile device is a built-in Java Virtual Machine. But, bear in mind, with challengers like Microsoft and Qualcomm's BREW, that's a requirement I could revise in a year or two.
Another must-have in every mobile device, from this point forward, is Bluetooth. I've written before about Bluetooth and I'm still surprised by the lack of foresight from many of the mobile device manufacturers when it comes to the inclusion of Bluetooth support. At the very least, Bluetooth eliminates the myriad proprietary connectors it takes to connect anything to everything in your mobile portfolio. With Bluetooth, phones can talk to computers. Computers can talk to PDAs. Everything can talk to a printer. PDAs can talk to phones (if you prefer not to have a converged device) and the compatibility of these devices with each other isn't wiped out by some new generation of devices that requires new connectors and cables.
While at TechXNY, I explained to PalmSource CEO David Nagel how Palm's decision to change the connector and cradle form factor between generations of devices (like from the Palm V to the Palm 505) turned my expensive Minstrel wireless modem into a doorstop. I was not pleased. I wanted a 505, but to maintain Internet connectivity, buying a 505 would mean buying a new modem.
Bluetooth solves this problem. Connectors and cradles become non-issues once everything you have is Bluetooth-enabled.
Bluetooth solves another problem. If you have more than one wireless account, Bluetooth allows you to consolidate them. Today, the only path for my Compaq iPaq to the Internet is via Earthlink's wireless services, which costs me $40 per month. But, because the iPaq has no thumbboard and guzzles battery power (in other words, it can't always be on), I save that for special applications like filing stories from trade shows and go with my BlackBerry for 24/7 e-mail management. Wireless services for a BlackBerry cost another $40 per month. Finally, my mobile phone (a Java-based Nextel i85s) costs me $100 per month. If all the devices could connect via Bluetooth, they could share the phone's $100 Internet connection and I could eliminate any additional wireless costs.
From this point forward, everything you buy (be it a computer, a PDA, a phone, and maybe even your TV) should have Bluetooth built-in. Period. Without it, a couple of years will pass and you'll wish you listened to me and you'll end up buying new devices at significant expense.
Finally, I have a beef about batteries. People should be able to buy extra batteries for their PDAs. The battery should not be an integral part of the device, so that the device needs to be sent back to the manufacturer when the battery no longer holds a charge. Batteries should be detachable and replaceable. Phones usually don't have this problem, but they have another. The power cord should plug into the device in such a way that the act of detaching the battery doesn't cause the device to power down. The power cord for my cell phone plugs into the system unit (the phone) and not the battery. But for some crazy reason, if I decide to replace the battery while the phone is plugged in, the phone powers down anyway. Go figure.
And there you have my Rx for mobile happiness. Let me know if I left something out. TalkBack to me or e-mail me at david.berlind@cnet.com
