PDAs In Everyday Life

A personal digital assistant (PDA), also called a palmtop computer, is a handheld computer. Color screens as well as audio capabilities have been introduced into the newer PDAs so that they can also be used as smartphones or mobile phones, portable media players or web browsers. Many PDAs can now access the Internet, intranets or extranets using Wi-Fi, or Wireless Wide-Area Networks. Touch screen technologies too have been introduced.

CASIO PF-3000 was the first PDA to be launched in 1983. PDA functionality was first introduced into mobile phone by Nokia in 1996 called 9000 Communicator which is the best selling PDA in the world. This also led to the emergence of the category of phones called smartphones such as the RIM Blackberry, Nokia N-Series and Apple iPhone. The present PDA has the touch screen, and a memory card slot for data storage. Connectivity is provided by Bluetooth, WiFi or IrDA. Those without the touch screen continue with a directional pad, softkeys and a thumb keyboard or numeric keyboard for input. The software typically includes a to-do list, appointment calendar, an address book and a note program. Web support and E-mail is available with those PDAs having web connectivity.PDAs can store information which can be accessed whenever the user wants to access them. PDA, when fitted with differential Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, offer realtime automobile navigation. New cars are often fitted with such PDAs. Many PDAs are also enabled to display road conditions, traffic conditions, roadside mobile radar guns and dynamic routing.

Some of the well known PDAs include E-TEN, Abacus PDA Watch, Acer N Series, AlphaSmart, Audiovox (Sprint) PPC Series, Amida Simputer, Encore Simputer, BlackBerry, Fujitsu Siemens Loox, HP iPAQ, I-mate, Nokia E Series, Dell Axim X51, Motorola Rokr E6, MotoRokr E8, SonyEricsson P-series, and Apple Inc.’s iPhone & iPod Touch. You could check out further details as for instance for Dell Axim X51 from Dell Axim X51 review.

PDAs are also used for mobile data applications by businesses and government organizations. Applications include package delivery, supply chain management in warehouses, medical treatment and record keeping in hospitals, route accounting, parking enforcement, facilities maintenance and management, capital asset maintenance, access control and security, ‘wireless waitress’ applications in restaurants and hospitality venues, and meter reading by utilities. Data capture devices such as Bar Code, Smart Card Readers and RFID were also incorporated into many of these PDAs. 77