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ultimate PDA

 every handheld device ever made rolled up into one
  (+1, -4)
(+1, -4) 		  [vote for,
against]

A small handheld device with 3 major capabilities:

1. Communications - it should be able to act as a cell phone, walkie talkie, receive am/fm radio, browse the internet, send/receive email etc

2. Personal reminders - it should contain an address book, notepad, calendar, voice recorder, regular camera, camcorder, MP3 player etc

3. Information handling - it should have a spedometer, calculator, lie detector etc

This product would be made out of pity for the modern technophile with the Batman belt filled with these individual devices. It would just be handy to have all these things handy inside a single unit.

—fleasting, May 10 2001

Never lose anything again http://www.halfbake..._20anything_20again
As long as the PDA has some satellite devices - eg bluetooth wristwatch you should be OK. [st3f, May 10 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Handspring Treo http://www.handspri...&prod_cat_name=Treo
I think this counts for at least a halfbake. [Orb2069, Mar 21 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Pogo http://www.pogo-tech.com/
Phone, PDA, full Web access (equiv. 56k modem speed) all on a handheld GSM device [hippo, Mar 21 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Lots-Of-Stuff Walkman http://www.halfbake...-Of-Stuff_20Walkman
Already half-baked here? [JKew, Mar 23 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]


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Annotation:







       Using the terminology of the half-bakery, I'm in favour of putting more and more functionality on a PDA as long as the fusion is 'baked'.   

       <rant>At the moment the mobile phone/PDA fusion doesn't work very well. PDAs are too big to be good phones. Build in bluetooth (or whatever radio protocol replaces it when it eventually dies due to lack of interest) and you make solutions more viable.   

       1) detachable handset. A small piece of the PDA detaches and unfolds. Advantages - this can be made even smaller than current mobile handsets as it needs no keypad/display. Transmission power is lower cooking your head less.   

       2) Combined PDA/MP3/phone. Just add a microphone to the headphone cable. Doesn't even require bluetooth.   

       3) PDA speakerphone. Add a microphone and decent speaker to the PDA and use it hands free.   

       I don't suggest these as alternatives. If a combination unit is to be succesful it shouldn't force the user into one mode of operation and should allow the user to choose how they want to operate the device.</rant>   

       Some combinations are easier than others to do well with current technology and some additions affect the usability of the device. Plus Rods is right - it's going to be a pain when you lose it.
—st3f, May 10 2001
   

       Merger of the PDA/Cellular is a good idea and a reality. I like this personally as the PDA has internal wireless internet connectivity.
—ironfroggy, Mar 21 2002
   

       [ironfroggy] You mean like the Pogo? See link. They achieve 56k modem speeds for Web pages over a normal phone link by doing lots of on-the-fly compression between the Pogo ISP and the Pogo.
—hippo, Mar 21 2002
   

       Um: 56K modems already do "lots of on-the-fly compression" between modem and modem.   

       Pogo's very cagy about its compression -- I tend to think it's more about lossy head-end repurposing (so, for example, the Pogo ISP scales images to fit on the Pogo screen instead of the entire image being downloaded and scaled by the device). That "faster than your PC's 56K modem" might be quite a clever spin: it may well be faster to show a given web-page, but a PC will present it in much higher quality...   

       FWIW, some web-enabled digital TV platforms pull similar head-end tricks to reduce bandwidth and client complexity.
—JKew, Mar 23 2002
   

       //every handheld device ever made rolled up into one

I hope then that not only does it do all of the functions noted, but its a spork as well.
—mcscotland, Mar 23 2002
   

       Functional fusion (allowing the devices to use each other's functionality) is a good thing, but physically fusing the devices isn't necessarily good. A physical design that's a good PDA isn't necessarily a good phone.   

       That said, there's no reason your data (address books, bookmarks, appointments) can't be replicated across your suite of devices. You may decide to leave your PDA at home if you're short on pockets one day, but your phone book is still with you in your your phone (which I assume is much smaller since it doesn't need to duplicate the display on your PDA), and your appointment reminders still pop up on your watch (though you may not have the ability to edit any of these with the devices you're currently carrying, maybe you can do it from a web browser from wherever you are, or record a voice annotation on your phone).
—sdpinpdx, Aug 04 2002
   

       i love the idea of pda/cell phone in one.   

       should focus on a butterfly hinge where outside is a phone. When one opens it (like a book) the surface area doubles into a pda.   

       no keyboard on pda's, they just decrease view area.   

       flexible screen, maybe made from gyricon.com or e-ink.com epaper instead of lcd, so it can be folded in half.   

       instead of using the antenae as a writing implement, include an indent in the back of the unit for a nylon thimble. Thimble allows one to use his finger to write instead of a clumsy fake pen.
—neuroticus, Nov 15 2002
   


 

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