tugrik

Earlier I'd posted that I really disliked PDAs, Palms in particular. One of my roomates asked me why and I had to think about it a moment.

Primarily it has to do with the fact that I cannot write, as far as the physical task of pen on paper. Well, okay, I can but I'm terrible at it. As a young'n I always had problems with the written word. Reading was fine, but writing was a challenge. It wasn't until I learned how to type from my mom's Century 21 Typing Manual in 3rd grade that I started getting good with putting down ideas; the act of pushing keys helped me straighten things out. Looking back on it, I think this means I was in some way quite dyslexic, and my key to getting around it was to put a mechanical layer between myself and the output.

This is still true today. I can type insanely fast (as my friends put it), but I've got the handwriting of a doctor who's been on a 30-hour shift. Thank goodness for drafting class in high school -- I'm often saved by the acceptable cheat of using printed characters with the same odd 'always uppercase, just change size' methods the draftsmen use.

Now, take this and try to get me to do Grafitti on a Palm, or Jot on a WinCE device. *Bzzt* Thanks for playing! Next contestant please... Next, add in the fact that I'm pretty 'anti-carry-stuff'. I'm just forgetful enough that I can really only remember the Three Basics when moving place to place: wallet, keys, phone. Keys in left pocket, wallet in right, phone on belt. It's now a habit to check for all three each time I stand up or leave a place, and I no longer lose them. Adding a fourth device that doesn't clip on or fit in a jeans-pocket is just not good. I'll either lose it or simply forget to take it in the morning.

This leaves me with two options: doing without a PDA, or combining the PDA and phone in a form factor that I can carry clipped to the belt and not forget. Had the 9000 series not won me over, I'd probably have ended up with one of those silly Treo things and finally given in to the Cult of Palm. They're just such an ugly form factor... too big to fit into a pocket safely, and too square-like to hang from a belt. They do have a thumb-board and phone integration, however.

I'm a laptop/computer junkie. I've had laptops ever since the ancient Sharp 4-line LCD typewriter lookalike that used bubble memory. At work, at home, and in some cases while at play, I have computers sitting at the ready. I want my real keyboards, darn it, and real computing abilities. While I can appreciate what most palm-like devices do, they simply don't float my boat when it comes to how much real work can be done on them. So what do I need? Well, mostly just a place to store names and numbers and take the occasional quick note since I have terrible short-term number memory. Most modern celphones do that already, as they have address books. One just has to put up with using 10-key to input the names.

The 9000 series caught my eye because it had a much nicer contact system that was truely integrated with the phone. Instead of having to get out a Palm, look up a number, get out the phone, type in the number, and call... you just point at a number in the contact card and press 'dial'. Done. If someone calls in the caller ID links to their contact card and it pops up with all relevant info right there. The fact it also does email, faxes, SMS (short message system) and basic internet stuff like Telnet and web-browsing just rounds out the package. That's more than enough, and I'm all happy. Now the rest of the PDA's abilites -- spreadsheets, games, silly shareware, you name it -- are all just extra goodies piled on top. I don't need them and will most likely not use many of them... but hey, they're there and fun to fiddle with.

Most will find this phone too big and too clunky compared to the tiny celphones they're used to. However, compared to a tiny phone plus a Palm (or handspring or CE device) together... this is smaller, lighter, easier to use, easier to carry, and most importantly much better integrated. Time will tell if this is the 'right way' and the rest of the market follows, or if we're going to end up with a suite of little buzzing and whirring devices all over our clothing that talk Bluetooth to each other or whatnot. Already in going from the 9000 of a few years ago to the 9290 of today... it's gotten smaller, faster, lighter, easier to read, and much more powerful. Gotta love technology.

At the end of the day I just want something that makes keeping in communication with work, friends and family as easy as possible. The fact that now my phone plays TMBG's song "Minimum Wage" whenever my boss calls is just a bonus.