July 29, 2007

Happy birthday to my Acer Aspire 5003WLMI!
Well my Acer is now one year old! Hard to believe as it feels like I just got it yesterday! Well, I am hoping that I get another year out of the battery now! Heres to one year with my Acer and the battery has only lost 5WH of capacity!
You know what? I THINK ITS TIME FOR A RANT!
This is one of them things thats bugging me now... The PDA market is beyond dead... Why is this? Simple, the companies like HP and Palm just plain don't care about them anymore. HP made a few phones and all Palm cares about is the Treo. This is a rant devoted to the lack of PDA use.
There are some stuff that can bring back the PDA market. The first thing though, is probably the biggest market for these devices.
The back to school market This is the biggest market if you ask me. There easier to travel from class to class with for one thing. Not to mention that the battery life is a lot better. They are getting close to what a student needs most in terms of the operating system programs. Couple the PDA like my iPAQ with a keyboard like my StowAway Bluetooth model. This is the ultimate in mobile computing for me. Its not as good as having a full operating system but its also a lot cheaper.
There is a way to make this seem important to kids and parents a like. We need to Stress the Features of One. They are not just a basic organizer any more. They are getting more advanced. Here is just some of the things that they can do!
Office Both Pocket PC (or Windows Mobile as its called now...) contain office programs. The ones on Windows Mobile are core programs in the operating system while Palm chose to bundle a very popular application with there operating system. Documents To Go for Palm OS is a very nice office suite. Windows Mobile has Word Mobile and Excel Mobile with a PowerPoint viewer, where as Documents To Go has Word, Sheet, and Slideshow programs that allow editing as well as viewing. This is great since you don't need to buy another application.
Music Yes, you can even use a PDA for music playing. They may not have a hard drive in them for the most part with a few exceptions like the LifeDrive that Palm made. I can use a 4GB SD Card with WMA audio files at 48KBS that sounds just fine, and fit A LOT MORE MUSIC THEN ANY IPOD NANO CAN! Plus there's the fact of that you can change the music player. Palm includes Pocket Tunes basic, and Windows Mobile has Windows Media Player. There are numerous others that you can use. Thats the best part as there are choices.
Internet Yes, they have Internet access now. This allows you to go online for information. Thus can help for when you are doing a report. This also openes up the use of online radio stations and chats. You can read the news from the palm of your hand. They both include a web browser so why not get one with WiFi and use it?
Reading eBooks You can get a reader for these and read a book in a digital format on your PDA. This can be helpful as there is no book to get ruined or lost. Plus this helps save paper and carry less stuff
The final reason I will tell you about is GAMES!!! There are many games, both free and commercial. Sure this isn't the best reason for school use but everyone needs a break now and then! There are games of every type for both Windows Mobile and Palm OS. Chances are you will find ones that you like. There are even high end games like Call of Duty 2 on Windows Mobile.
There are a lot of programs on both Palm and Windows Mobile... Thats the fun part of it! You can experiment and make the device just the way you want it. You may want a program that tells you the weather for example. There are programs that will do just that! There are themes that you can tweak the look to what you want in a PDA.
There is an idea I had that company's can do. They can make bundles that would be cheaper then buying everything separately. One possible bundle could be you pick the PDA you want, and what you want for it, and get maybe 20% off the total purchase. This could be anything at all that you want. You could get a case, a keyboard, a spare battery, and a SD card. The company could also box the bundle up.
They could also start including better software with it. My idea would be they would have a list off applications you can try, and pick so many of them, to get for free. Like you could have a choice of any 3 applications that you wanted from a list of maybe 10. This would be better since you would have more powerful programs. Even a discount is better then paying full price for them!
Another thing they could do is make them a multimedia device. This would be sold next to the iPod and other players. They could have options of flash memory to hard drives. For example, a 4GB flash model for 300 or a 80GB hard drive model for 500. They could also function as Internet devices. The Internet device could be larger and have a keyboard that would attach to it through standard USB.
Well, that was a long rant wasn't it? The sad thing is that I am not done yet! But now we are onto a different subject. While still on the topic of mobile electronics, this is a different subject. Lets continue!
One feature that all PDAs should have to me is USB host. This allows you to use a flash drive with the PDA. Really good for when you need the file on a computer. This would mean that you could take the file off the PDA, place on the drive, use the file on the computer, and put it back on the PDA. Very useful for word files and other documents. Such as when I code this website. Its much easier then me using an SD or Compact Flash card!
How many people remember the Handheld PC of yesteryear? Well, I am one of the people who still uses one as I have said before. They are quite amazing devices for when they came out. My NEC is so old yet has a lithium ion battery. This means that the PDA is light, if you can call almost 2 pounds light! The best thing about them is the keyboards and the operating system though. I can type on mine for a while before the battery is dead. I wish I could say the same for some laptops! My main question though has to be...
Why did these die? These are the perfect travel companion for me. They weren't meant to be a PDA really. They are too big for your pocket for the most part yes, but they make up in what they can be used for. I mean look at me, I code my website on it. There is one reason I love my NEC, even though you can't see the screen outside, is that its easy to use. Its like using Windows! The real sad this is that I can do something I can't do on my iPAQ!!! Multiple word documents open.
Okay, now I am done!