Online Encyclopedia
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.
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Overview
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 (RIM), Linux, and Symbian OS (formerly EPOC)
According to a Gartner market study, the overall market has shrunk by 5% in the first quarter (Q1) of 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 communicator s — mobile phones with PDA-like communication functions.
Popular 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
- Information Appliance
- Laptop
- Microbrowser
- Personal area network
- Personal Information Manager
- Smartphone
- Sub-notebook
- Toothing
- Wearable computer
External links
- PDA Hotspots Sites suitable for small screen PDA's
- Linux on PDAs
- Repair and upgrade instructions for PDAs
- medPDA.net Medical application reviews, news, discussions.