Handheld, laptop =?

Last year or two I think that no one watching this picture. Mobile phones tend to catch up in its perfection and an abundance of opportunities for PDAs. The latter, in turn, hasten to catch up on their technical characteristics with laptops. Laptops are the same - the price and performance - claims to be the conventional desktop computers. And no end to this race, and unfortunately never its participants are not destined to overtake each other, and whether we should ... Write this article I podtoknuli begin regular flickering in the English-speaking Internet articles and materials on the topic "the CPC as a complete alternative to a laptop." Unwittingly became interested in this problem and not out of idle curiosity, but only for practical reasons I decided not to trust the foreign authors and sort things out himself. I'm on duty often go on missions in various cities of our country and always my constant companion in these missions has been and remains a laptop. First it was in those days terribly expensive Rentium 166 of Mitec. Now it's the same Mitec, or Toshiba, but with a Celeron-processor 700 MHz, lightweight configuration (HDD-20GB, TFT 13 ', RAM 96 MB, CD) and cost less than $ 1000. It is clear that the main advantage, which gives a laptop - mobility, it is possible to work on it in the road. In my case - is to fatten and editing text documents (working with spreadsheets, creating presentations, etc.) using Microsoft Office. Suitable for a person traveling with the business intentions, handheld and whether he can really replace a laptop? I will say, looking ahead - my personal expectations in this regard is not entirely justified. But about everything is in order. Buying a PDA (in my case it's Palm m505), you get yourself a great organizer: notebook, diary c car and small truck to boot any nice apps. Pocket PC you will never miss an important meeting on time and wake up in the morning. Also, due to office suite, similar software on the desktop (Word + Excel), you have the opportunity to fill his lyrics, making signs, supply them with drawings, etc. Models of hi-end perform the functions of the recorder and mp-3 player, but this below. First, in the case ...

Palm + keyboard + office = Laptop + Microsoft Office?

Is it easy to work on a PDA with a fold-out keyboard and a set of office software, as on a laptop? The answer to this question for me was almost obvious, so I bought a folding keyboard to my PDA Palm Portable Keyboard, installing a newer version of the word processor WordSmith 2.0 and went on another trip. However, because of fears, and then justified himself, and took a laptop. The only "shaking" modes - this is our car or bus. As it turned out, a human being to work in such conditions it is impossible not to Palm'om or a laptop. The second test "stand" was the train. Here the laptop proved to be flawless. And the text stuff, and you can play your favorite game. But the Palm ... (Slightly shaking, constant attempts to focus the mind on the jerky picture on the small screen, and finally, annoying "jumping" from the Pocket PC keyboard connector attempts to commit suicide by hitting the floor. Just annoying having to put the keyboard only on a horizontal surface. I do not think discovered America when I say that is most convenient to check the typed text on a Pocket PC, as he brought to his eyes. In this case, it can be done. The device is connected to the keyboard, which lies on the suitcase on my lap. stoop useless .'s eyes get tired quickly. Yes, it is apparent defeat ... The last test conducted by me on the plane, where the shaking is missing, showed that under these conditions are well behaved both a competitor. It has come to the surface another drawback handhelds, or rather their characteristic feature - a small display. With this has nothing to do. Is that possible hooliganism, has attached to the handheld, a huge magnifying glass on the example of prehistoric TV KVN ...:) Hey, where are you, the venerable founder of the family of Pocket PC - Newton ... It looks like our grandfather soon be born again, thanks to actively promote the direction of Bill Gates is now a Tablet PC or Tablet PC. Well, what I mean ...) As for the functional abilities of offices for the Palm can not say anything bad. WordSmith sufficiently powerful text editor that could provide me with the minimum capabilities required for working with text in a way, the benefit of any perpetual motion I need to draw and it was not;)

The PDA + GPRS = Internet without boundaries!

GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) - now the most progressive and, mind you, inexpensive way to get wireless access to the World Wide Web. For those who can not quite know the advantages of GPRS are:

- Possibility to connect to the Internet anywhere, anytime, where the cellular operator providing GPRS service


- No need for local telephone lines for Internet access


- Pay only depending on the amount of transmitted / received data (ie, do not pay for connection time, as in the case of WAP, but for real traffic)


- An opportunity during the operation of the Internet to receive and make calls from your cell phone.
When using the GPRS subscriber can view the HTML-page pump files, manage e-mail and any other Internet resources. The actual speed of GPRS is now our mobile operators to 33 kbit / s, the maximum speed can reach 171.2 Kbps. Connect to PDA or laptop access to GPRS, connecting it to your mobile phone (through infrared or Bluetooth), support this standard. On the market today do not want to pick-like phones. This Siemens S45/ME45, Motorola Timeport 260, Nokia 8310, Motorola v.66, Sagem MW979, Ericsson T68i, etc. In the Moscow region, services for wireless access to the Internet are now providing for two of the largest operator of Beeline and MTS. In Beeline cost of 1 MB of data transmitted or received is $ 0.25 (excluding VAT and sales tax). The volume of data sent and received during the billing period data is rounded up to 40 KB. Non tariffing volume at the beginning of each sescii is 5 KB. MTS from June 10, 2002 This service is in testing stage and so far all the fun is free, so now's the time to connect. (However, this topic deserves a separate article which will appear shortly.) And yet I say that in terms of wireless Internet access, comfortable work with GPRS, PDA indisputably "beats" laptop. Fast, cheap, mobile, e-mail is always with you, in your pocket, it is true, provided that you are in the areas of the GPRS. Unfortunately, in Russia, these do little. Sorry for the incurious, but I personally can name only two: in Moscow and St. Petersburg. And, in the northern capital GPRS works confidently and beyond in the near field, while we have outside Moscow turned off completely.

CPC works longer ...

Here it is, another advantage of smart handheld friend to absorb the energy of a huge portion of a portable computer. Relation to the length of time of up to 3 to 4 times, which makes handheld becspornym leader. Various accessories such as cables charging from a car or a regular network (without cradle), allow us to solve the problem of feeding the PDA on the road. Here I would like to highlight two enhancement. Moreover, the first available to us - is to develop MakTsentr - Cable 3-in-one, allowing to do without the cradle.Charging is then carried out either from the network or from the USB-port desktop c simultaneous timing or on-board systems in motor vehicles. It is worth $ 25 charger. However, details about it can be read here.

Cable USB (charging) + avtoadapter for Palm

The second, inaccessible while for Russian users the option - it is a variety of portable chargers. For example, Instant Power, the so-called charging cartridge (Power Cartridge) from Electric Fuel, which is connected by cable to a handheld PDA and provides feeding, thereby saving you from having to find outlets outside the home. All hope is now on the domestic developers, who will take over the valuable experience of their foreign colleagues, and will release a similar compact "field kitchen" for our favorite handheld with you, or entertainment, which I'll explain below, will be short-lived ...

PDAs can play music, show videos, but ...

Yes, it can, but it is not my case. On the road, so it will be fun difficult, unless the toys. Basically this refers to the multimedia machine for Pocket PC, a palm-music can be heard on Sony's MP3-player. (However, very soon with a new Palm OS 5.0 will include new Pocket PCs, which, as the developers promise, will be implemented in hardware MPEG4 decoder, and in general it will be full-fledged multimedia handhelds. We can not wait!;) While the price for PDA Pocket PC is about $ 600. What you get for the money? 32MB of memory allows you to deploy to any music, nor much, especially with high-quality video. (Not to mention the size of the screen!) Of course you can not buy a memory expansion card, or even connect an external hard drive, but all this costs money. Price "tricked" the handheld starts relentlessly strive for the price of inexpensive laptop computer. The advantage of low prices, alas, is lost.

To summarize ...

Handheld computers have taken our solid niche in the field of high-tech devices, gradually turning from expensive toys in the same attribute casual business man, like a mobile phone. With the advent of cheap wireless Internet access via GPRS, their popularity in our country grow. At the same time road testing showed that theoretically PDAs ripe to become a full replacement for a laptop. All that is required of the machines in the field, she regularly performs: allows me to work with text, check email, educate and even entertain. However, little work with the Pocket PC was (to put it mildly) not very uncomfortable. The reasons are described above. But in short - is a small screen and the problems with the input of information even with the folding keyboard. I think that to correct this deficiency will be much harder than even completely replace the software and iron filling device. It requires changing the very concept of a personal digital assistant. In my opinion, the situation will not save either built-in keyboard in new models of PDAs and smartphones Treo line from Handspring, no voice input of text. (But then so peredctavlyayu picture: I'm sitting in an airplane, and loudly, clearly pronouncing each letter, dictate a new contract to its digital assistant. Absurd!) But everything has its place. Laptops and PDAs - two different market sectors. Each device is developed and used for its intended purpose. Universal does not happen, but they are not needed. The authors, translation:

Alexander Skusnov