The Evolution of Handhelds

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.brighthand.com/article/Handhelds_Becoming_PCs' target='_blank'>http://www.brighthand.com/article/H...ds_Becoming_PCs</a><br /><br /></div><i>"I tend to break Palms and Pocket PCs into two categories: PDAs and handhelds. Devices are separated into these categories by how they are intended to be used. A PDA is a peripheral for a desktop or laptop computer. Without a bigger computer to synchronize with, it's virtually useless. Back in the mid-90s, when the first Palm OS models debuted, they were definitely PDAs. A few still are released today, like the entry-level Zire models. A handheld, in contrast, can stand alone (although they aren't used this way often enough). A handheld can do just about anything a desktop or laptop computer can do. I classify just about all Palms and Pocket PCs released in the past few years as handhelds."</i><br /><br />Ed Hardy has written an article discussing the trend where handhelds are moving towards laptops in terms of functionality. The inclusion of hard drives in handhelds certainly gives them a bump in that direction, though I dearly hope the first Pocket PC implementation we see is better than what Palm did with their LifeDrive unit. What do you think handhelds will be like 24 months from now? What evolution will they undergo?

[Menneisyys]

Ed Hardy has written an article discussing the trend where handhelds are moving towards laptops in terms of functionality. The inclusion of hard drives in handhelds certainly gives them a bump in that direction, though I dearly hope the first Pocket PC implementation we see is better than what Palm did with their LifeDrive unit. What do you think handhelds will be like 24 months from now? What evolution will they undergo?

Well, I certainly disagree with Ed about built-in Microdrives. Some units may have it, but the vast majority won't unless built-in types will be much bigger than real, insertable Microdrives. Modularity is extremely important - the user should be given the ability to choose what to put in his PDA and what to leave out. Among other things, this modularity made the PC a success back in the eighties.

Furthermore, Ed only mentions one disadvantage of MD's: their vulnerability. He completely forgets things like program loading speed (which is one of the worst aspects of storing programs on the built-in HDD - see the example of LifeDrive) and power consumption.

All in all, I don't think all high-end PDA's will have MD's. Flash technology is developing by leaps and bounds and it's technically much superior to MD's. Prices will also continue to plummet, so, MD's will not have price advantage for long either.

[surur]

That article is quite funny. Its not PDA's which have evolved, its Palm's. PocketPC's have just become more refined.

The Evolution of Palms:

160x160 , B&amp;W, IR, 2MB

160x160, B&amp;W, IR, 8MB

160x160, Colour, IR, 8MB

320x320, Colour, IR, Bluetooth, 8MB

320x320, Colour, IR, 32Mb, keyboard, Wifi

320x480, colour, bluetooth

320x480, colour, bluetooth, wifi, 4GB HDD

Palm, you've come a long way baby!

Pocketpc -

240x320, IR, 32MB, SD, CF
240x320, IR, Bluetooth, 64Mb, SD, CF
240x320, IR, Bluetooh, Wifi, 64Mb, SD, CF
480x640, IR, Bluetooth, Wifi, 128MB, SD, CF

Surur

[jickbahtech]

I actually think he might be right on this one. Most people don't seem to care about modular designs when shopping for things like media players. We're already seeing phones with MD's, so why not.

I also don't think the average consumer would be buying these products for loading software. MD lag from loading up an mp3 really isn't that bad, especially if it's cached properly. Really for a lot of folks, loading up software isn't a huge deal either. Save for a couple games maybe, it's really about what the device does out of the box.

Modularity made the PC popular, but Apple's current design success is based on out-of-the box functionality. And everyone right now is trying to best the ipod in the "personal gadgetry" arena.

I think you're right that Flash is very close (maybe a couple years out) to price parity with MD. I think we'll see laptops with Flash drives instead of hard drives very soon. Once that happens the advantages of MD almost completely disappear.

[bcries]

This includes Pocket PCs. Leaked information from Dell indicates that an Axim with a built-in hard drive is coming this fall. And I'd be very surprised if HP wasn't far behind.
Hehe... so he thinks HP is pretty far behind? ;)[/quote]

[felixdd]

That article is quite funny. Its not PDA's which have evolved, its Palm's. PocketPC's have just become more refined.

The Evolution of Palms:

160x160 , B&amp;W, IR, 2MB

160x160, B&amp;W, IR, 8MB

160x160, Colour, IR, 8MB

320x320, Colour, IR, Bluetooth, 8MB

320x320, Colour, IR, 32Mb, keyboard, Wifi

320x480, colour, bluetooth

320x480, colour, bluetooth, wifi, 4GB HDD

Palm, you've come a long way baby!

Pocketpc -

240x320, IR, 32MB, SD, CF
240x320, IR, Bluetooth, 64Mb, SD, CF
240x320, IR, Bluetooh, Wifi, 64Mb, SD, CF
480x640, IR, Bluetooth, Wifi, 128MB, SD, CF

Surur

That's not quite a fair comparison. Initial iterations of CE PDAs had keyboards and horrible b/w screens compared to the palmpilot ones. Subsequent iterations started with 4 mb on-board memory (Casio E10), and slowly snaking their way from 8 mb to 16. And don't forget, Handspring was the first to come up with the integrated thumbboard.

The way I see it, Palm started earlier and with better (more grounded) designs than CE. CE had a rough start because it lacked focus as an operating system. But Microsoft's perseverence turned this lack of focus into flexibility, which eventually overtook Palm in terms of technology. Palm's subsequent "innovations" were in fact just adoption of already-existing innovations from devices running CE. Just look at expansion slots, color screens, stereo output, mic recording, and CF slots.

The LifeDrive is by-and-large a competent device dressed with an obselete operating system. IMHO, the execution was not as bad as some might say -- they combined a lot of good technology into a usable size, and many are happy with their purchase. At this point, Palm needs to innovate and do things first, rather than follow, if they are to regain market share.

[surur]

Back on topic - next years handhelds will have GPS built-in, and more and more will have GSM circuitry. Thumb boards will be added to more. Next years handheld will basically be the MDA 4/ HTC Universal.

The year after all devices will have GPS. They will all have VGA screens. They will have a large amount of storage. They will be integrated with entertainment services, such as TIVO and Napster. They will be thinner. They will have WIFI G and bluetooth 2.

So basically nothing revolutionary. If you look back 3 years in the past (say my old HP 568) and compare them to today's devices they would look very similar, just have more wireless and possibly have higher res screens. I do not see much change in that trend.

Back to my hobby horse, Palm devices of today do not look very much at all like the Palm devices of 3 years ago. At least they have stereo sound now.

Surur

[twalk]

Millipede. Imaging 100G of storage in a 2.5 oz cell phone...

[dazz]

I'm REALLY hoping battery technology takes a huge jump forward. With a big jump in capacity there is a lot more that could be done.

Battery tech is slowing down innovation in my opinion.

[Tim Rapson]

My original desktop model had a Motorola 6800 running at 8 MZ with 512K (½ MB) or RAM. It had a 720K floppy drive. Later it had two floppies and a massive 30 MB hard disk that cost $600 alone. It was one of the MAST, (Mac, Amiga, ST) trio. An Atari ST to be exact.

My first POS Clie NR70V had a version of that same Moto 6800 running at 66MZ with 16 MB RAM and a 128 MB memory card. I also had a Psion RevoPlus clone and a Mono Ipaq along the way. Whoever above said that early mono PPC models had screen inferior to the Palms, perhaps that was so for the first generation, but my second generation one was as good as or better than 90% of the Palms of the time.

I used them very similarly to my desktops. I have little use for PIMS.

WordSmith on the Clie was and is as any word processor I had on the Atari. Nice fonts.

MyBible is not quite yet as powerful as having three windows open on my ST Bible program Spiritware's Concordance.

TealPaint is about on a par with primitive paintware the Atari came with. Later programs added a lot more power.

I couldn't use real pictures or commercial music on my Atari as I could on my Clie as there was no CD or digital camera to get those things from. Even desktops didn't do such stuff commonly then.

The other big thing none of us did then that we do so commonly now is surf the Internet. Browsers in the hand are automatically better than those on my old Atari, of which there were NONE.

What I really liked on my old Atari was desktop publishing. The Palm has no program to do that. It might work of Mobile Systems new OfficeSuite7 with the latest version of Mobile Paint. I tried this program once before, though and had trouble with support, so I won't likely be trying it again.

I think that a PPC set up with TextMaker and PocketArtist for dtp, along with the various other programs I would use would beat any desktop I have had up to about Win 95. I know of no real advance in desktops since then, so I think that if I had, say a new Axim X50v, I would need my desktop only for Internet connection. With a new HTC Universal and it's phone connection, I could see anyone easily replacing a desktop completely---AND replacing his phone, iPod, and basic digital camera.


On all of my recent PDAs, I have used them like desktops as far as memory goes. Though I have to have most programs in RAM in order for them to sync, I keep the big ones like Videohound on my memory card and it takes a few seconds to load them, like a desktop. The nicest part of a big one gig card is for backups. Very handy. If you lose files on a PDA or have a hard time backing up (my new DVD burner took 8 hours to backup my meager 15 gig of stuff on my desktop. Ridiculous) you are not doing it right. The next step in OS will make our PDAs use memory even more like desktops. I hope they don't make us take on the problems of our desktops (as noted by Gerard above). I already much prefer the way my PDA works (much faster, and far fewer problems), and I think the new memory schemes will make our PDAs even better.

[Menneisyys]

Modularity made the PC popular, but Apple's current design success is based on out-of-the box functionality. And everyone right now is trying to best the ipod in the "personal gadgetry" arena.

It, IMHO, will just won't work with current, 4-6 GB microdrives. Unless PDA's get a 1.8" HDD (meaning at least a 20 Gbyte HDD), I don't think any PDA's can really rival the iPod in the "personal music player" category.

I'd really consider getting a PDA with a built-in, say, 40 GByte 1.8" HDD, even if it was considerably thicker than current PDA's. I have a USB host-enabled PDA (PL720) and also a battery-operated 2.5" HDD enclosure (the MamboX image tank) with a 60 Gbyte hard disk; still, I'd prefer a PDA with a built-in HDD if it's really large and not just 4-6 Gbytes, just to avoid cabling and carrying two separate devices.

[stevelam]

They will have WIFI G and bluetooth 2.

Wimax!!! 30 mile range at 70mbs! YES

[MG]

None of these great things will happen if battery life does not improve. Especially "connected" devices. The Samsung i730 has been designed around battery conservation. Until the battery technology catches up, hardware and software innovators will be forced to work within the confines of poor battery life. :(

Where is that nuclear fuel cell with the 10 year life?

Mark

[jickbahtech]

It, IMHO, will just won't work with current, 4-6 GB microdrives. Unless PDA's get a 1.8" HDD (meaning at least a 20 Gbyte HDD), I don't think any PDA's can really rival the iPod in the "personal music player" category.


I agree for the most part, and 40GB in a PDA would be awesome (shoot, the 20GB drive in OQO would suite me just fine). But a lot of people had these same arguments against the iPod Mini when it came out. $300 for 4GB just seemed like to much for too little. I thought the same thing about the shuffle when it came out, but they're selling fairly well. I know this is an Oranges and Pears comparison, but these devices have colored the public's perception of "cool". I think the general public is probably going to be hearded over to Smart-Cool cellphone type devices with 2-4 GB harddrives or memory card slots, and "power-users" are probably going to be checking out micro-tablets with cellphone functionality.

In the short term, I think we're going to see a sharp spike of MD proliferation, that will die off as soon as Flash can reach price parity (especially once MD reaches its physical limits, can it really get bigger than 10, maybe 20GB?).

[saru83]

In the short term, I think we're going to see a sharp spike of MD proliferation, that will die off as soon as Flash can reach price parity (especially once MD reaches its physical limits, can it really get bigger than 10, maybe 20GB?).

Actually the 4GB SD card will be available commercially very soon from Pretech.. and the SD Association mentioned that they r working on a 8GB SD, so i wonder by this time next year they will be working on a 16GB or a 32GB one as SD's up limit is 32GB, so anyways, as much as i want them to integrate MD's in PPC's, but it wont last long.... coz flash is evolving sooo fast ..... SD rocks :wink: