Make sure your new PDA can be taught to tap-dance
Zatni Arbi, Columnist, The Jakarta Post
It is the bane of technology's unending and increasingly hot race: Early adopters are left behind before they know it. Those who bought the first generation of personal digital assistants (PDAs), for example, could not agree more.
When they bought the cool gadget and showed it off around the office, it became the envy of co-workers. A couple of months later, another guy would buy a new PDA and it would be his turn to become the center of attention.
While the oldest PDAs provided the basic functions such as a personal organizer -- an address and phone book, a "to-do" list, a calendar for appointments, etc. -- and a calculator, newer PDAs included a voice recorder, an MP3 player, an e-mail client application, a browser, etc.
Handspring, a leader in PDA technology, even combines its PDA with cellphone functions in its Treo line of products. Nokia combines its cellphone with PDA functions in its Communicator 9000 series.
The popularity of PDAs is already beyond doubt. More and more Web sites are offering contents specifically laid out to be displayed on the PDA's small screen. PDA prices have not changed that much, unfortunately. They still range from US$ 399 to US$ 2,495 (for a heavy-duty, rugged PDA from Symbol).
To be sure, the Internet is chock-full of free and almost-free software that you can download and install on your PDA. Most popular are perhaps the various games that you can play on your PDA -- although your boss may not think that is what you are supposed to do with your "assistant".
The software can expand the capabilities of your old PDA. Unfortunately though, to add MP3 or image-capture capability to it would be almost as hard as to teach an elephant to tap-dance -- especially if that old PDA of yours does not have an expansion slot.
Expandability was clearly not what the designers of the early generation of PDAs had in mind. Even their battery was not replaceable.
So, once the li-ion battery lost its ability to store power, the PDA would end up as landfill. If it had not cost so much in the first place, that would be a welcome reason to go out and buy the latest and most comprehensive PDA on the market.
The latest PDAs come with slots into which you can attach accessories such as a Secure Digital (SD) card for a larger memory capacity, a flashcard, a mobile phone module, a digital still camera, a global positioning system (GPS) device or a Bluetooth module.
The good news is that they are also beginning to use replaceable batteries. Two of these are the new HP Jornada 565 and 568, which run on Pocket PC 2002 and have a removable battery.
If you have a Palm m500, you can teach it to take pictures by attaching a Kodak PalmPix. Do not expect professional-quality images, though, despite being made by Kodak. If you have a Handspring Visor, you can also teach it to do the same tricks by adding the new Handspring Eyemodule2.
Visor owners can also add mobile phone capability to their PDAs by adding Springboard cellphone modules, although these devices seem so far to have failed to grab much interest in the market.
With so many possibilities, what can you do to ensure that you can still keep the new model of PDA that you are about to buy, up to date?
First of all, make sure it has one or more expansion slots or some other means of accommodating additional devices.
And, if you are thinking of teaching your PDA to make phone calls by adding a cellular phone module, make sure that the add- on device will work with existing networks.