Some shoulder-strained road warriors might replace their heavy laptop with a PDA-phone, collapsible keyboard and micro-projector.
The phone had been rumored as far back as 2002 when Jobs downplayed talk of a new PDA, suggesting that the next PDA would be a phone, anyway.
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Using a PC or laptop (or cell phone or PDA), you can peruse a calendar that shows open slots at your local dealership.
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And that's why LG Electronics , Samsung's nearest competitor, also based in South Korea, probably won't follow suit with its own Palm-based, phone-PDA combination device.
The question is whether you should buy a number of separate trinkets (phone, PDA, pager) and walk around like a digital Christmas tree, or look for a device that combines them all.
Having email, the Internet, a PDA and your cell phone all rolled up into one tiny device in your pocket that's really manageable has really helped me be more efficient, particularly traveling the world because it all works globally.
It looks like Microvision tends to favor the diminutive kind, however, as the company is looking to showcase its "ultrathin, miniature full-color projection display" at next week's CES. Hoping to cram this bad boy into your next mobile phone, PDA, or other handheld gizmo, the firm is touting its incredibly small form factor as the next coming of mobile displays.
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The smartphone is just a merging of the cell phone to a PDA. Not that revolutionary.
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From the beginning of Microsoft's mobile efforts in the PDA era, its touchscreen phone software has had a Start button and windows that could be minimized like the classic Windows desktop.
"The PDA market is evolving into a phone market, " says Kalla.
That's what appears to be happening in the mobile-phone business, as companies combine phones with personal digital assistants (PDA).
Concerned that a Palm license would force its phone into a higher price bracket, LG has developed its own PDA software.
Though so far it has stayed away from the PDA-combo product class--it's leaving that to its mobile phone joint venture with Ericsson (nasda: ERICY - news - people )--Sony is playing the percentages by producing PDAs that will appeal across a pretty wide spectrum.
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