PDA phones: Making the right choice

Rati Chaudhary

Is PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) a smartphone or smartphone a PDA? How is a PDA different from a Pocket PC? What to look for and what to avoid while choosing the right handheld? Of course, a PDA phone is supposed to make life easy especially, for the road warriors and it will…only if you decide which one to buy. What is common between a phone and a wife? The better model comes after you decide which one to go for. This is definitely true in case of phones. If you are the kind whose knowledge and interest in a phone is restricted to the green button and red button, maximum to the inbox then the market is flooded with good-looking phones that suit all the pockets. For people who want a lot more out of their phones and are willing to spend some extra money a PDA phone is just the right thing. With manufacturers and developers packing in as many features in the old sized PDA it would not be long that the PDA phone will even do your laundry and cook your meals. Originally designed as personal organizers they are now used as phones, web browsers and media players. The choice, however, is not easy. While on the hunt for a good PDA it is better to be clear about the devices and applications available. The smart PDA Mobile phones in the market as of today can easily be characterized under three broad segments: PDAs, smartphones and what I call dumbphones (for whatever is not smart is dumb. Right?). Difference between a smartphone and a PDA is very fuzzy. In fact over the years both have actually become the same in terms of their features. But perhaps the best way to differentiate between the two is that the PDA has a touch screen while a smartphone does not. Since PDA was earlier a personal organizer and later included in the phones segment it can be said easily that a smartphone is a phone with PDA functions. In effect, both have similar functions. Pocket PC, however, is just a brand name given to the operating system in Windows mobile devices that have a touch screen. In other words a pocket PC is a kind of PDA. PDAs are mostly bought for their functions as a mini-computer (unless you are a show off). Just like a computer they have an operating system, browsing capability, office applications and emails. Stick to basics, no frills While choosing the right PDA the most important thing to look for is the operating system. PDAs are run on different Operating Systems (like Mac VS Windows in computers). Predominant in the Indian market are Windows Mobile (eg: HP Ipaq), Symbian (eg: Nokia E61) and Linux (eg: Moto Ming). Make sure you are clear which operating system you are more comfortable with and then pick the phone. The choice of design also depends on your requirements. Some people prefer the touch screen mainly because of the style value and some do not simply because it takes a lot of effort and time to write with the stylus. In case you fall in the category that adores touch screen but still don’t have the time to use it for simple things like messaging then it is better to buy a phone which has a QWERTY physical keypad. Bluetooth, WiFi are the basics and are available in almost all the PDAs now.

Market Survey HTC Touch: Rs 19,900 Dopod D600: Rs 17,900 Dopod c800: Rs 34,900 Imate Jama: Rs 15,990 Imate Jaq3: Rs 25,500 Imate Jaq: Rs 25,000 Imate PDAL: Rs 24,990 HP hw6965 iPAQ: Rs 31,000 HP 6800 iPAQ: Rs 30,000 Nokia E61: Rs 19,199 Sony Ericsson P990i: Rs 19,897