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I fell in love with mobile computing back in 2000. I purchased my first handheld computer which was a Palm branded pda. I don't recall the model as I only owned it for a couple months; however, it was a monochrome screen with very little memory or capabillities compared to today's handhelds. Around the same time Microsoft launched it's brand of handheld computers called Pocket PCs. One of the first models in this line was the iPaq released by Compaq. The iPaq was a huge success and helped start the decline of Palm's hold of the majority of the pda market at the time.

Currently I own a Dell x51v which is a huge improvement over the original Pocket PCs with its VGA screen, large RAM and ROM memory, removeable battery and dual flash card support(CF and SD), bluetooth and wi-fi support. Unfortunately Dell has discontinued this line of Pocket PCs and Microsoft has completely abandoned the Windows Mobile OS (which ran on several smartphones) for Windows Phone 7 which was officially released in Oct 2010. I am not really interested in phones which is why I am still using the x51v. There has been so little progress over the past few years in the handheld market that it allowed Apple to dive in and make millions with their ipods and iphones.

I'm not that guy that runs out and buys a new product just because it's new. Sometimes I might want one of the new features but I have a hard time paying $500+ when my current device is working just fine so the new features have to be amazing. This is one of the reasons I don't like Apple products. It seems to me that they deliberately with-hold options for future releases just to sell more product and although they have cool devices from a design perspective they always seem 5 years behind in functionality (ipod removeable battery fiasco proves my point).

I'll wait until 2011 to see if people adopt the new MS product or if I need to change to the Android platform. It's sad that a 5 yr old handheld is still powerful enough to keep me from upgrading. I think I am ready to upgrade but I might move in a new direction since reading my number 1 activity on a handheld and the small screen is limiting beyond textual novels.

So....at the end of 2008 I bought a tablet PC from HP in the hopes that this would give me the best of a 4 inch and a 12 inch touchscreen but I think I became an early adopter to the technology as things are changing drastically and needs to mature into something more useable. With the iPad's release, other companies are scrambling for their own share of the market so hopefully 2011 will be a great year for computing. Hopefully something that includes cameras and media slots like the first iPad should have had. I am so happy I am not a silly uneducated consumer who gets excited by frills that are useless!

 

Mobile



History of the PDA

(1993) - Apple Newton
(1996) - Palm Pilot 1000
(1996) - Casio Cassiopeia A-10
(1998) - HP Jornada 820
(1999) - HP Jornada 420
(2000) - Compaq iPaq 3600