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: \nPalmSource's Palm OS, \nPocket PC (Windows CE) from Microsoft,\nResearch In Motion\nLinux,\nand \nSymbian 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:\n* Palm OS - 40.7% (stable)\n* Pocket PC - 40.2% (slightly increasing)\n* Research In Motion - 14.8% (strongly increasing)\n* Linux - 1.9% (stable)\n* 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:\n*Apple Newton\n*BlackBerry\n*Casio Cassiopeia\n*Casio Pocket viewer\n*Franklin eBookMan\n*Handspring Visor\n*hp iPAQ Pocket PC (Originally Compaq iPAQ until HP merger in 2002)\n*Nokia Series60\n*Palm Pilot, Tungsten, Treo and Zire\n*Psion 5\n*Sharp Wizard and Zaurus\n*Sony CLIÉ\n*Xircom REX 5000 and REX 6000\n*Dell's Axim \nYou can download Wikipedia to your PDA: Wikipedia:TomeRaider_database \nSee also: \nebook, laptop, personal area network, smartphone, sub-notebook, wearable computer, Toothing \n

External links

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

See also

\n* Microbrowser\n* Information Appliance\n* Personal Information Manager\n* Smartphone \n\n\n\n\n\n\n