Choosing The Right Pda

The diminutive personal digital assistants, or PDAs, are considered a niche product, favored by mobile workers who prefer not to carry full-size laptops on the road.

Originally intended as personal information managers (PIM), PDAs of late became more versatile as faster processors, bigger memory and other capabilities like WiFi and Bluetooth were added. There are many flavors of PDAs available in the market - categorized according to the operating system they are using: Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Blackberry, and with the entrance of Apple’s iPhone, OS X.

There are also PDAs that run on a special flavor of Linux, and proprietary operating systems such as those of Casio and Sharp. As they are computers in their own right, PDAs come with their own processors and internal memory. Most handhelds use processors with the ARM architecture, such as the Intel XScale and StrongARM, while some low-end PDAs use the Motorola Dragonball. Most have processors that run at least 200 MHz or faster. PDAs come with non-volatile flash system memory ranging from 16 megabytes to 256 megabytes and may be expanded further via the expansion slots. Many support different flash cards, such as Compact Flash, Multi Media Card, Secure Digital, and MicroDrive.

Other devices, such as GPS receivers and cameras, may be added to the device via the expansion slots. As they are meant to be used outside, handheld computers are equipped with a variety of communications ports for it to be able to send and receive data from various sources. Basic handhelds can synchronize data with personal computers and other handhelds using the USB port and an infrared transmitter (IrDA port), while high-end devices have Bluetooth, WiFi, and GSM/EDGE for tasks such as file transfer, mobile telephony, email, and Web browsing. Handheld devices have come a long way in terms of display. For basic ones look for at least 160×160-pixel LCD, while high-end PDAs should have screens that can display 480×320 pixels and 65 thousand to 262 thousand colors. Almost all have touch screens and support on-screen data entry using a stylus. The iPhone also has a touch screen but does not require a stylus. Fingers will do.

Aside from the basic PIM functions, PDAs have a slew of features that make them more useful, such as integrated cameras (most have VGA resolution, but others have mega pixel resolutions already), media player and voice recorder. Also, look for the bundled software included with the device, such as office productivity programs, games and communication and synchronization software.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.