Personal Digital Assistant

Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) are handheld devices that were originally designed as personal organizers, but became much more versatile over the years. A basic PDA usually includes a clock, date book, address book, task list, memo pad and a simple calculator. One major advantage of using PDAs is their ability to synchronize data with desktop, notebook and desknote computers.

The term personal digital assistant was coined on 7 January 1992 by John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, referring to the Apple Newton.

The currently major PDA operating systems are: PalmSource's Palm OS, Pocket PC (Windows CE) from Microsoft, Research In Motion Linux, and Symbian OS (formerly EPOC)

According to a Gartner market study, the overall market has shrunk by 5% in Q1 2004 compared to Q1 2003, and the shares are:

• Palm OS - 40.7% (stable)
• Pocket PC - 40.2% (slightly increasing)
• Research In Motion - 14.8% (strongly increasing)
• Linux - 1.9% (stable)
• Other - 2.4% (strongly decreasing)

The usually cited reason for this decline are the growing capabilities of communicators — mobile phones with PDA-like communication functions.

Some examples of PDAs:

• Apple Newton
• BlackBerry
• Casio Cassiopeia
• Casio Pocket viewer
• Franklin eBookMan
• Handspring Visor
• hp iPAQ Pocket PC (Originally Compaq iPAQ until HP merger in 2002)
• Nokia Series60
• Palm Pilot, Tungsten, Treo and Zire
• Psion 5
• Sharp Wizard and Zaurus
• Sony CLIÉ
• Xircom REX 5000 and REX 6000
• Dell's Axim

You can download Wikipedia to your PDA: Wikipedia:TomeRaider_database

See also: ebook, laptop, personal area network, smartphone, sub-notebook, wearable computer, Toothing

External links

• PDA Hotspots Sites suitable for small screen PDA's
• Linux on PDAs
• Repair and upgrade instructions for PDAs

See also

• Microbrowser
• Information Appliance
• Personal Information Manager
• Smartphone