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Ideal PDA Feature Wishlist?

Posted by Cliff on from the talk-about-those-cool-ideas-you've-thought-about dept.

RichiP asks: "My memory is so poor I forget friends' birthdays and appointments I made a day ago. I sometimes have an idea I want to jot down but that I end up forgetting when I finally come upon pen & paper. To help myself, I was thinking of purchasing one of those integrated PDA and cellphone devices (first the Handspring Treo then another by Samsung), but I've always felt that these devices were still far from ideal. I was wondering if the Slashdot community would share their wishlist of features for what they believe would be the ideal Personal Digital Assistant. Features for input, processing and output are all welcome. Perhaps the device I want may be years from becoming commercial. Given the right ideas from input from others, I might be able to come up with my own device or start an open project geared towards it." Even if you do feel that PDAs have a limited lifespan, if you had a chance to add a feature to a PDA (especially if you felt it would increase the lifespan of the PDA), what would it be?

12 of 477 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by Cave+Dweller · · Score: 4, Funny

    (just summarizing here)

    1] Longer battery life
    2] An actual keyboard (or a stylus that works)
    3] Upgrade-able software
    4] Lots, LOTS of memory
    5] Ofcourse, the ability to run in a Beowulf cluster...

    1. Re:Well... by MaxVlast · · Score: 2, Funny

      He still hasn't denied working for Sharp...

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
  2. Re:Voice recognition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I'm sure it'd work great when making notes in a meeting.

    Cellphones have had voice recognition for years, but it's quicker not to use it. Get yourself the SonyEricsson P100, that'll have voice recognition, camera, cellphone, PDA, bluetooth etc, and be light enough to carry in your pocket.

  3. A personal digital assistant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I want one of those 3d girls.
    and force feedback

  4. All I know... by ruiner13 · · Score: 5, Funny

    is that as far as memory goes, 640K ought to be enough for anyone.

    --

    today is spelling optional day.

  5. Oh fer chrissake! by sgage · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... what you need is a $.49 memo pad and pencil.

    Sheesh.

    - Steve

  6. If you made on like this I would buy it by daserver · · Score: 3, Funny

    linux pda.

  7. Re:Voice recognition by Ironfist_ironmined · · Score: 4, Funny

    then again there would be people who would walk up to you, ask for directions, wait for you to get out your PDA then shout "delete all files"

    --
    0xC3
  8. Feature List by under_score · · Score: 5, Funny
    Here's my list:
    1. High dpi screen - maybe 400dpi would be acceptable - and a resolution upwards of 1600 x 900 with the ability to use portrait or landscape orientation.
    2. Touch screen so that it can be a writing/drawing surface.
    3. No more than 0.5 inches thick, but ideally 0.3 or less would be nice.
    4. About the same density as paper - hefty but not heavy.
    5. Good sound: do some magic with directional speakers so that the sound can be loud but relatively private without headphones. Obviously you would need a pretty intense intelligent sensor system to know where to point the speakers ;-)
    6. Extremely good voice and handwriting recognition.
    7. High-speed wireless internet access anywhere in the world on a flat rate. This should be a minimum of 1Mbps, but 10Mbps would be better.
    8. Strong! Should be able to withstand drops (while turned on) from about 6 feet up onto concrete without physically or logically breaking.
    9. As fast as possible :-) Ideally I'd want at least a 16 way Athlon XP yada, yada, no wait! 64 way... you get the idea.
    10. 3" CD R/RW is there a 3" DVD format? there should be).
    11. As fast as possible :-) (Again!) The graphics subsystem should be at least equivalent to the top of the line 3D NVIDIA card of 5 years in the future!
    12. Neural Jack - need I say more?
    --
    Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. Re:my ideal PDA... by wo1verin3 · · Score: 3, Funny

    if you had one of those I'd be taking shots at you....wtf would it need to be bullet proof?

    I'd shoot you in the foot or something to steal it

  11. Re:A striking clock by dubl-u · · Score: 3, Funny

    I want it to do that Ding-dong, ding-dong... Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! ... ("Hey, is it five already?") Surely this would not be hard to program but I can't find one out there.

    I bought the rights to this technology and had it suppressed. Why? Because for 90% of its users, it would be "Hey, is it half-way through the movie already?"

    The next phase of my plan is to make it so that the cellphone that makes noise costs $90 more than the vibrating cellphone. Then I will make it so that all car alarms immediately summon the police. Consumers will perceive this as a security feature and buy it in droves, but they will soon discover that the police, overworked and irritated, will summarily execute anybody who can't work their car alarm, which is apparently almost everybody.