Tech Toys Guide: PDAs

Since Palm's trendsetting Pilot debuted in 1995, we've seen a two-horse PDA race between the Palm OS market—now consisting of companies such as PalmOne and Sony—and the Pocket PC market, which includes companies such as Compaq, Dell, HP, and Toshiba. Both systems have left behind their traditional strengths (Palm was a simple product, especially for consumers, whereas the Pocket PC has historically better served business users) to become extremely powerful in a variety of situations. Today, you can use Palm OS or Pocket PC devices for much more than simple personal information manager (PIM) functionality.

Today, all but the most budget-conscious PDAs offer some form of built-in communications, be it Wi-Fi 802.11b wireless networking, Bluetooth, cell-phone capabilities, or—in some cases—all three. Most of today's PDAs are also capable multimedia performers, with integrated music and video playback features, as well as simple photo-viewing and editing capabilities. You even have high-resolution alternatives, such as Sony's vibrant 320 x 320 Palm OS-based CLIE devices and the Toshiba Pocket PC line, one model of which offers a staggering 640 x 480 VGA display.

Today's Pocket PCs run Windows Mobile 2003, the latest version of Microsoft's PDA OS. The HP iPAQ family of products has long been the Pocket PC market's bestseller, and HP's 2003 lineup is its strongest yet. Like many Pocket PC makers, HP offers a wide range of solutions targeting virtually every budget point, including the excellent iPAQ h1935 ($200), which features a super-slim design and a gorgeous, transflexive screen that's easily viewable both indoors and outdoors. But the most impressive addition to the iPAQ lineup this year is the h4000 family, which includes two capable members, the h4155 ($450) and the h4355 ($500), which feature essentially identical innards: a powerful XScale 400MHz processor, 64MB of SDRAM, SD expansion, and integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth; the h4355 also adds a thumb keyboard. In 2002, a machine this powerful would have been twice as thick and cost over $600.

Dell's 2002 entry into the Pocket PC market was an instant success, and the company is now one of the world's largest makers of portable devices. This year, however, Dell has upped the ante with an amazing new device line, the Axim x3. The basic Axim x3 ($230) features a 400MHz processor, 64MB of RAM, and a nice USB cradle. The high-end Axim x3i ($380) adds 64MB of StrataFlash memory and integrated Wi-Fi, making it one of the smallest, thinnest, and lightest PDAs to offer this kind of capability.

For Palm OS, 2003 was a time of transition. Market leader Palm merged with Handspring to form a new company called PalmOne. Predictably, PalmOne's offerings are a combination of Palm and Handspring offerings, with the Palm Zire 21 ($100) bringing a capable low-end PDA to budget-conscious consumers. The Zire family is designed to replace Palm's best-selling m Series, and although the Zire 21 still offers only a black-and-white screen, the device now boasts a more attractive white plastic case. The Zire 71 ($300) adds a gorgeous color screen and an integrated camera. Moving more upscale, Palm's innovative Tungsten line was filled out this year with Tungsten T2 ($329) and T3 ($400) models; both offer colorful screens, plenty of memory, and integrated Bluetooth, but the T3 adds an amazing stretchable screen that offers 50 percent more viewing area than other Palm handhelds. Palm also offers the Treo 600 smart phone ($450), a combination phone, organizer, and email reader with an integrated thumb keyboard.

After working for years to advance the state of the art in Palm-based products, Sony took an interesting detour in 2003 and began to further distance itself from the pack. Though Sony still offers a few traditional slate-style PDA devices, the company's most innovative and interesting products look nothing like the competition. Consider the CLIE NX80V ($550), which features an integrated camera, optional Wi-Fi capabilities and a terrific swiveling chassis that doubles the length of the device when it's open and offers a QWERTY keyboard for simpler text entry. Or perhaps you're more interested in the CLIE UX50 ($650), which hearkens back to the clamshell designs of early handheld computers but carries forward Sony's vaunted design style and multimedia capabilities. With both 802.11.b Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in, the UX50 is also a communications champion.

No roundup of portable devices would be complete without a mention of Research in Motion's (RIM's) BlackBerry wireless email products, which run on neither the Palm OS nor Pocket PC platforms. Now available in color models, BlackBerry devices offer always-on, always-connected wireless email access from virtually anywhere in the United States—an increasingly important feature for mobile workers. BlackBerry devices were the first to ship with integrated thumb keyboards and are available at a variety of price points. They also require a monthly service charge.

Although many PDAs now ship with a full suite of capabilities—including integrated keyboards, wireless, and Bluetooth—you'll probably need some sort of expansion. The most popular and necessary expansion is memory, which can take the form of Secure Digital (SD), MemoryStick, or CompactFlash, depending on the device ($50-200). If you want to get some typing done and you don't have an integrated keyboard, or you find the keyboard to be too small to be useful, consider an add-on keyboard, which will typically ship in a foldable box that's no larger than the PDA itself. I recommend the Belkin G700 PDA Keyboard ($80), which comes in versions for a variety of devices, and the Belkin Wireless PDA Keyboard ($60), which might be a better solution for today's wireless-equipped devices.

Belkin also offers a wide range of useful PDA add-ons, including the USB Charger and the USB Sync Cable ($20 each) for various Palm, iPAQ, CLIE, and Toshiba e-series PDAs that let you charge and synchronize without a bulky cradle—a boon for frequent travelers who like to keep weight to a minimum. The company also offers an interesting range of Bluetooth wireless-connectivity products, including a Bluetooth Dongle, PC Card, and CompactFlash Card, which lets you add Bluetooth compatibility to PDAs and PCs for wireless synchronization.