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Death of the PDA?

Posted by michael on from the not-likely dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Economist has an article proclaiming the death of the PDA. Smart phone sales are predicted to overtake PDA sales this year."

6 of 435 comments (clear)

  1. I don't think so... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Palm Zire 21 - $99 USD

    Kyocera 7135 Smartphone - $499 USD.

    Until they can close this gap, PDAs aren't going to be dead. And a $400 difference is going to take more than 1 year.

    Propz to GNAA

  2. especially... by pizza_milkshake · · Score: 5, Funny

    especially the PDAs running *BSD. they are *really* dead

  3. In other news... by Gldm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Cellphones will become extinct as PDAs with cellphone capabiltiy become common!

    --

    Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!

  4. Re:Yeah, so? by uptownguy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Gotta love Slashdot's incendiary headlines. "DEATH" of the PDA, indeed. But then again, headlines like these have been around as long as Slashdot has. Longer, even. Why, the following is a classic from Slashdot's vaults circa October 1993...

    Death of the Calculator?
    "The calculator market will never be a mass market," says Cindy Brady, an analyst at Echo Blue, a market research firm. Almost everyone who now wants a calculator, she says, now has one.

    In contrast, sales of "computers", high powered computing devices capable of doing things most calculators can do, are rising fast. While some industry leaders, such as Texas Instruments, believe they are positioned to eke out a niche market, others are proclaiming the death of the calculator...

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    I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
  5. Right! by uradu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think convergence will eventually happen, but I wish it would look somewhat different and take advantage of some useful technologies. You still want a large screen to view lots of info, so convergence towards phone-size displays is bad. You also want a SEPARATE handset so you can read the screen and talk at the same time. How about moving the communications guts of the phone into the PDA and connecting a separate handset to it via Bluetooth? Perhaps make an oversized pen than also doubles as a handet. That would still make taking notes during a call pretty difficult, so maybe just use a regular old Bluetooth headset instead.

  6. "The PDA is dead" says... by iamhassi · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ""The PDA is dead," says David Levin, the boss of Symbian, the leading maker of smartphone software."

    LOL. Is this like Bill Gates declaring Linux dead? Actually no, it's the opposite since smartphone is the underdog. This is more like Linus Torvalds or Steve Jobs declaring Microsoft dead. Why is this newsworthy?

    --
    my karma will be here long after I'm gone