BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : FEBRUARY 26, 2001 ISSUE
TECHNOLOGY & YOU Call Me Back on My Handheld They're not yet a perfect fit, but PDA-cell phone combos have come a long way When I looked at the convergence of wireless phones and handheld computers in my last column, I concluded that companies were far more likely to succeed at adding phone functions to handheld computer platforms than in trying to turn phones into computers. This week, I take a look at some products that do a good job of turning handhelds, or personal digital assistants, into phones. Like all of their breed, these hybrids tend to be clunky, at least by the standards of today's sleek, pocketable phones. But there's a limit to how small you can make a PDA and keep it useful. The slickest new device is the ''Palm-powered'' Kyocera Smartphone, which will probably cost $400 to $500 with a service plan. It's the successor to the Qualcomm pdQ phone of 1999, which struck me as a Palm glued to a phone. Not only was it huge but there was little integration between the phone and the Palm components. Not so the Smartphone. At 5.6 inches by 2.6 inches, and 7.3 ounces, it's bigger and heavier than the Ericsson R380 I looked at last week. But it's also much more adept. Flip down the dialpad, and you have what looks--and works--like an elongated Palm. You get all the familiar Palm applications, 8 MB of memory, and one-button syncing with your desktop information. DESIGN GLITCH. With data service from a CDMA wireless carrier such as Sprint (FON) or Verizon (VZ), you also get an assortment of wireless features. The Smartphone emulates a Palm VII and can use all of the applications that have been written to grab bits of information, such as stock quotes or traffic reports. It can view both special Web sites designed for Wireless Application Protocol phones or standard Web sites, though the limitations of the Palm display may seriously limit what you can see. It can use any standard e-mail account, using the Palm address book to locate recipients. In a world of fragmented wireless technologies, this versatility is a huge plus. The design isn't perfect. A little wheel on the left side of the phone supplements the standard Palm scroll buttons for easy one-handed use. Unfortunately, when holding the phone in your left hand, an earphone plug sticks out right where you want the base of your thumb to be. And since you get maximum advantage from the Smartphone by using it with a headset, this is a nuisance. The VisorPhone from Handspring (HAND) is a Palm clone with a phone stuck on. It's a GSM phone module -- $499 for outright purchase, $299 with service from VoiceStream (VSTR), Cingular, or Powertel (PTEL) -- that slips into the Springboard slot of a Handspring Visor. It offers all the wireless features of the Smartphone, plus short message service, a function similar to instant messaging. The module plus Visor makes an awkward phone, but the excellent touchscreen phone interface makes you wonder why Kyocera bothered with a dialpad. Europeans will soon see some additional PDA-based phones. The Wireless Assistant from France's Sagem and Mitsubishi's Trium Mondo are phones based on Microsoft's PocketPC design--something like Compaq iPAQs that make phone calls. Both will communicate with the Internet at up to 64 kilobits per second using the GPRS service now being deployed in Europe. That's at least four times faster than current phone-based data services available in the U.S. HELP COMING. North American customers will get an interesting choice later this year when Samsung introduces a phone based on Microsoft's Stinger project. It will be less versatile than a full-fledged Pocket PC. But the prototypes that I have seen feature a big display and a clean, simple user interface in a package smaller and more phonelike than the Smartphone or the Visorphone. Getting a PDA and a phone into a single package is a design challenge that, when solved, will be a real convenience for users--just one device to carry, plus the ability to dial the phone directly from your address book. As wireless data networks improve, however, the display and data-entry limitations of conventional phones will become more obvious and the software flexibility of a handheld computer will become more desirable. At that point, the combination phone-PDA will be an imperative. With luck, today's experiments will mean that manufacturers will be ready when the happy day arrives. BY Stephen H. Wildstrom, tech&you@businessweek.com Questions? Comments? E-mail tech&you@businessweek.com or fax (202) 383-2125 Want to express your own views on a tech&you column or other technology topic? 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