Not since peanut butter and chocolate has there been a more natural match than the personal digital assistant and the cell phone.
But for some time, this natural marriage has been frustrated. Would the phone merge into the PDA? Or would the PDA be incorporated into the phone? This may be the year those questions are finally answered.
Falling prices for chips and tiny computer screens have given manufacturers more flexibility in trying out new configurations. Meanwhile, wireless companies have been experimenting with next-generation network technologies that make it easier to send data, as well as voice messages, over the airwaves.
The result has been an explosion in the variety of portable devices that will help mobile users shuffle data and voice calls to and from wherever they happen to be.
One example is the Pocket PC Phone Edition offered by wireless carrier T-Mobile. The $499 lightweight device is essentially a digital organizer with the stub of an antenna built in, enabling the user to make voice calls. Alphanumeric paging, e-mail and remote Web-surfing are a few of the other features, besides the usual calendar, address book, notepad, etc.
Recently, Microsoft and hardware partners Hitachi and Samsung announced they would introduce even more “smartphones” that combine mobile computing power with wireless voice and data connections.
It’s an intriguing glimpse at the future.
However, Consumer Reports recently reported that U.S. cell phone callers continue to be plagued by poor call quality, billing errors and problems connecting to emergency services.
Our cell phones are becoming increasingly sophisticated and powerful, but it looks to be a bumpy road between here and the day when they’re as reliable as regular wired phones and Internet connections.
