AnchorDesk

Molly to handhelds: just die, already
Sony announced this week that it's pulling out of the PDA game in Japan. The announcement comes a year after Sony stopped selling new handhelds in the United States and Europe, and spells, basically, a complete withdrawal from the PDA market.

Now, if only other PDA makers would get the message. Many have speculated that Palm-based PDAs are dead and have declared victory for Pocket PCs. But actually (spoiler alert!), the entire PDA category is like Nicole Kidman in The Others. It's dead but it just doesn't know it yet.

There are zero good reasons to buy a new, single-function PDA. Handheld devices are hemmed in on both sides by either smart phones or laptops--and, actually, a third emerging category, portable media or video players, completes the Bermuda Triangle into which PDAs will soon disappear.

Smart phones do what PDAs do and also make calls, so you don't need to carry both a handheld and a cell phone (and an add-on keyboard and whatever other devices you need to make a handheld truly productive). Plus, they cost about the same and are actually more likely to include a keyboard. Handwriting recognition and Graffiti gave it a good run, but it's obvious that even a tiny keyboard is better than none. If you must have both, let me introduce you to my little friend, the Treo.

If price isn't your argument and you're willing to carry two gadgets, why on earth wouldn't your second one be a laptop? They do everything handhelds do and then some, and with, obviously, more-powerful processors, more storage, bigger screens, integrated keyboards, and all the other bells and whistles you get from carrying an actual portable computer. Plus, notebooks are getting increasingly tiny; why would I ever be tempted by a $650, Wi-Fi-equipped, Bluetooth-enabled Asus MyPal A730W when I could get a palmtop like the OQO Model 01, an ultraportable notebook, or, if I'm really obsessed with handwriting recognition, a tablet?

Finally, if your mobile device needs aren't strictly business and you're truly willing to carry around a portable device that doesn't make calls or do word processing, portable video players such as the Archos Gmini400 or the Creative Zen Portable Media Center put handhelds to shame in terms of media storage and display, doing video, music, and digital photos.

Despite the talk about the death of Palm-based handhelds, I think it's even more inexcusable to buy a Pocket PC PDA. The only good argument for a PDA over a smart phone is interface; it's still somewhat clunky, on most smart phones, to sync and access calendar functions, e-mail, and the Web. But now that the Siemens SX66, the Audiovox SMT5600, and others are running the exact same operating system as the iPaq H4150 or the Dell Axim X30, what could possibly convince you that the handheld is a better buy?

Actually, none of this is really news. IDC noted this month that the worldwide handheld market declined for the third year in a row in 2004, dropping to fewer than 10 million device shipments. It's darn-near passè to talk about how utterly irrelevant handhelds are, and I applaud Sony--and, actually, Toshiba--for simply cutting the cord and getting the heck out. At least HP is catching on and putting phone capabilities in some new iPaqs. But I can't understand why the company continues to churn out new single-function iPaqs, why Dell keeps pumping money and development into new Axims, and why Asus is even still at it. Give up the ghost, guys.