Requiem for the PDA
Thursday, December 18th, 2003Chris Suellentrop, my editor at Slate, gets the credit for pulling the compelling statement of my otherwise pedestrian Handspring Treo 600 writeup to the top of the piece: Maybe you don’t want to blow $500-600 (before rebates, but still) on a Treo just yet. But will you ever buy a separate PDA again? The non-success of the Tablet PC compared to the insane buzz over Handspring’s superphone convinced me most people will want a phone that doubles as a personal organizer and email tool, not some hybrid handheld device that looks like Dr McCoy should be carrying it. I’m sure there’ll still be a niche market for PDAs, but I expect handheld makers will reinvent most of their products as “smartphones” in 2004.
One anecdote that got edited out: My hilariously contrarian pal Andrew Orlowski at the Register found the Treo’s keyboard unusable for himself and a few others.
