Following a holiday quarter in which worldwide shipments of handheld devices topped two million units, the worldwide market for (non-phone) handheld devices began 2006 with its ninth consecutive quarter of year-over-year decline. According to IDC’s Worldwide Handheld QView report, worldwide shipments of handheld devices totaled 1.5 million units, down 22.3% from the same quarter a year ago. At the same time, PDA/smart-phones sales are skyrocketing. Also, I posted a review of the QTek 9100 PDA phone.
Worldwide Handheld Market Continues Decline
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Cellphone makers did make a decent discovery – that if you’re already carrying a phone, just put the PDA in it. But PDAs which are not phones have so little practical use, they’re just not worth it. If you need to take a note, use a real yellow sticky (instead of ‘Stickies’ apps). Planners and organizers don’t need to be running on Mhz-chuggin ARM cpus, a $30 organizer usually gets the job done. MP3’s, okay maybe… but that’s what an iPod’s for (or gawd forbid, a discman that plays MP3s). Handhelds can’t run the vast array of software you can use on a laptop, and I don’t think I really need to go in to the agonizing issue of handwriting recognition features that almost never work – which you have to use since there’s often no keyboard (unless you’re gonna carry one seperately) – and tiny qwerty keyboards feel quite dinky and slow.
I’ve seen ‘palmtops’ – laptops no deeper than a CD, and barely an inch thick – which would probably be thousands of times more useful than a handheld. Sure they’re expensive, but a PDA is as close to a waste of money as I’ve ever seen (if it costs more than $100)… …unless you can make a call from it.
I don’t think the decline of the PDA is really due to them being useless. There are several issues that are killing the standalone PDA market. For one, the two major PDA operating systems are terrible. Windows CE is just too clunky for a small device with the kinds of usage patterns that a PDA has. PalmOS is something that has a great interface, but due to some internal design issues that made sense on the hardware before the Palm III but are nothing but a limitation on newer hardware – there are some applications that are unreasonably hard to implement well with PalmOS’s memory model, for example.
Problem number two is that handheld computers really aren’t useful for anything that’s very computron-intensive. This is a bit of a killer because the kinds of things I want to do with my Palm now are no different from the kinds of things I wanted to do back when color screens weren’t available on anything but the most expensive models. There’s simply no reason for my to replace my four-year-old device, and I doubt there will be until the thing breaks.
Problem number three is the lack of decent apps. Handhelds are most useful as a sort of support device for my real computer. But there are few apps that do this. The only one I use is Pocket Quicken. It doesn’t help that most of these tools are sold by a third party, so I have to spend $30 or more on top of the price of the desktop app, if a handheld equivalent exists. I can see some use for, say, a Palm tool that interfaces with Microsoft Access or Filemaker Pro, but I’m not aware of any software that does a really good job of it. There’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem there – it’s not worthwhile for vendors to write a “pocket” version of their software without many people who use handhelds, but nobody’s going to buy handhelds unless they can get lots of this “pocket” software that turns a handheld into something more than a $300 pad of paper.
I for one absolutely hate the idea of getting a combination cellphone and PDA. Why buy that much more than I need?
I’m not in the target market for cellphones, I am in the target market for PDAs. Combination’s of the two seem to work well because most people have cellphones and don’t mind getting the extra, I’ve rarely observed the same working the other way around.
A big reason why standalone PDA devices are flunking right now is because the input methods suck and the desired functionality is missing. Really what we need are more compact systems with the same basic shape as laptops, capable of doing most of the same tasks, and cheap enough that theft won’t scare people into keeping the things indoors and out of sight all the time. Such things used to be around, they would run a few hours on three rechargeable double A batteries and would run a full version of DOS or Windows 95/98 along with all the same software: e-mail clients, web browsers, media players, editors, office apps, compilers, etc….
What we need right now is some kind of return to these devices. The 100 dollar MIT laptop for the One Laptop Per Child initiative fits the bill, and that’s why so many people here wish the things were available in stores everywhere.
I just don’t get why companies aren’t catching on to this one, the demand for this kind of things is blatantly obvious every time there’s another press release for the 100 dollar MIT laptops. How obvious does it have to be?
There is a market out there for PDA’s. People who need to be able to do data entry on the move, like sales reps or doctors, and people who need a big screen for displaying data on the move. The problem with PDA’s is that they were oversold. I mean, I have one, I certainly don’t really need one (though I like playing around with it) and I won’t be replacing it any time soon. This has the effect that the PDA market seems to be slowing down and crumbling, but what it is doing is dropping back to a base of users that actually need it, hopefully they will number enough to sustain the market.
IMHO it would be the wrong move to integrate cell phones into PDA’s too : they are to cumbersome to make good phones. They would be better off integrating GPS which could take advantage of the portability and big screen of the PDA. This is one of the functions I see people buying add-on products for, and the portable GPS market has been expanding lately.
There’s at least one cellphone-pda-gps unit on the market already (Mio A701)
What the heck do I need a phone for?
I have a cell phone that works very well already, and I see no reason to combine my PDA and my cell phone (which usually results, in my experience, in a half-assed PDA that I’ll never use).
Some folks might see the value, but forcing the two together will end up shutting folks like me out of the market. I don’t want the phone functionality.
..won’t look at a PDA without phone capability. I’ve used PDA’s since the Palm III days but long ago gave up on the idea of a stand-alone PDA. Why have two devices when one will do?
Still, the variety of phones with full-fledged PDA capability isn’t that great. The Windows Mobile range are all fairly similar in design and spec – most being variations of the same designs from HTC. The Treo is the only one offering something different while also offering a choice of OS.
I dropped and killed my Treo 600 recently and have gone back to using my old XDA. Going back to WinMobile from Palm, I’m baffled as to why the PalmOS isn’t being used by more manufacturers. It’s a pretty good OS for this type of application and I look forward to going Palm again soon.
However, a friend bought the Treo 650 and had quite a few hardware problems with it so I think I’ll wait for the 700 to ‘settle in’ before making my next purchase.
Edited 2006-05-02 04:01
posting this from my new psp, gotta love new handhelds.
Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (PSP (PlayStation Portable); 2.00)
PSP a handheld? That huge ugly thing hardly fits a pocket!
Not if you’re wearing cargo pants
Of course, that doesn’t help those of us over 18 
Hello,
I have a Sony-Erecsson 3g phone that seems to require a restart every 25-20 hours or so and for getting work done and taking notes (while I’m on the phone) I have a Palm m130 that is rock solid and only needs a recharge about once a month.
The don’t want mobile data going in and out of my PDA nor have it locked to my provider and their network technology.
Nor do not I want to be unable to use it or have to juggle speaker and hands-free because just becaus I’m talking on the phone and booking a job with a customer.
I also want to leave my PDA at home when I got out dancing, drinking etc.
For simple calendaring/appointments, contacts, documents, spreadsheets, calculators the a simple Palm cannot be beat.
I meant to say z22. M130 was my old PDA but still very good for it’s time.
Also one more point:
I don’t want to be working on my PDA when it rings!
For me…
I have a cellphone and a Palm TX.
If one unit dies or becomes unusable I am not totally shutdown. I can still use the other device while I am getting a replacement for the other.
I also save on money, since my cell phone cost $50 and the PDA $300. If one unit dies, I am not faced with the cost of replacing the PDA and cellphone.
Plus, if a newer PDA comes out and I want it, I just buy it without worrying about a 2-year contract with Sprint, etc.
Contracts, IMO, are one major consideration against getting a SmartPhone. I considered getting one in my area, but Telus has taken contract-based fee-rape to a new extreme. It’s terrible.
I wrote about it here:
http://www.beryllium.ca/comments.php?mode=post&news_id=17
(Keep going after the ‘last’ sentence, there’s an accidental chunk of whitespace that I haven’t corrected yet)
I think people need to use what works best for them. For myself, I have a cellphone and a Dell Axim X51v.
While I had considered PDA’s in the past, I resisted them because I didn’t think I would use it enough to justify the price. Well, my wife got me the Axim for Christmas, and now I can’t imagine being without it. I love the Windows Mobile 5 OS, and I love how it syncs automagically with my desktop computer, especially the calendar and task list. Prior to getting the Axim, I didn’t even use the calendar or task list!
I don’t think I’d want to have a combo cellphone/PDA unit. I would give up either too much functionality, or it would be too bulky to hold to my ear. Yeah, you can always use an earbud or bluetooth headset, but I don’t want to always have to have it in my ear.
ok. I use it as GPS, as appointment books and as game MAN. I get a lot of fun out of it. Occasionally, I made phone calls using Skype on it. My hope is someday I can use it as a IP phone ANYwHERE.
I recently purchased an MDA compact from T-Mobile (Which is basically the HTC Wizard / i-mate k-jam). I have to say that it is a fantastic device. Not only does it function as a mobile phone, it will also send/receive e-mails as well as browse the Internet. My contract allows me unlimited web surfing, so whenever I am bored, waiting in the car, I can catch up on the latest news etc. You can also connect a GPS device up and use it for satellite navigation, although I purchased a TomTom for this. It also functions as a video/MP3 player, and unlike the review above, I have no problem playing videos.
I have owned a PDA on its own and without Web/Phone capabilities, I found it fairly useless. Aside from the Agenda, the only thing I ever used was the Bubblebreaker game. I suppose they are useful for the very busy Professionals. Maybe this will change when we start getting higher definition screens and better operating systems. But for me, my PDA is just a very useful phone.
I agree with most of the posts towards PDA’s, they were oversold. Palm had it right initially with elegant simplicity, MS changed the stakes by trying to bring rich-client functionality to a handheld device. In the end, what is a PDA for?
Most people use perhaps 10% of a typical PDA’s available functionality because they generally only need 10% of a typical PDA’s functionality. It’s generally overkill. I had a top of the line Toshiba with wifi, bluetooth, vga-connectability (for projecting powerpoints), brilliant screen, 256MB… and ultimately used it for synching my contacts/calendar and viewing office documents on the road. Way overkill for that, since I can pretty much do all of that with my trusty series 60-based Nokia 6620, while still maintaining some semblance and useability of an actual phone in the form factor.
I was also given a Nokia 9500, which while looking obscenely large for a handheld phone, flips open and has a half-height VGA screen with a reasonably useable keyboard. Wifi connectivity, support for IPSec VPN connections, ability to work with office doc formats, support for push email including Blackberry, and most importantly a reasonably full-size Opera web browser for html browsing including ssl sites. They’ve also optional voip clients allowing the phone to work with Cisco and Avaya ip phone solutions.
Nothing too revolutionary there in and of itself, except that rather than going with a pure PDA model, they’re trying to bridge laptop portability and functionality with wireless, always-available connectivity whether via wifi or GPRS, and maybe more importantly, they’re clearly targeting business users. Although it support mms, has a camera and plays MP3’s, they’re hardly forefront in the list of specs.
I think that’s where we’re going to see smartphones really start to take off, as extensions to enterprise networks. With many corporate internal applications being pushed to web-clients, combined with increasing popularity of ssl vpns for universal connectivity, I see these things as simply becoming remote web platforms for application availability and I suspect having PDA-specific applications will be less important. The phone functionality almost becomes a convenient byproduct of having the GSM/GPRS functionality built in.
Beyond that, I think the idea of PDA/phones or even smart phones is still of limited use to the average consumer.
…because even late comers to the market like me already have a half-dozen old PDAs sitting around. I don’t need another one unless it provides something novel (like my wristPDA does — it’s extremely portable).
It’s hard to sell to a saturated market.
Edited 2006-05-02 17:15
Handhelds are like a curb on a road… usually just there for looks. I’ve owned a few handhelds, and each of them was disappointing. Either it wasn’t powerful enough to do what I wanted, or more of a hassle to take notes on than to take out the handy bic in my pocket and write it on paper.
As for having all of it built into a cell phone, I’m even more opposed to that, because it’s putting all your eggs in one basket. (and with the poor reliability rate of phones lately, it’s a rickety basket at that) I want a phone that is a phone.
So here’s how I see it. If it’s something that needs a computer, I use my laptop (Dell Latitude l400). If it’s planning or note taking, give me a piece of paper and pen, K.I.S.S. Palmtops overcomplicate life.
What I think would be useful is a device that isn’t trying to be a tiny kitchen sink… How about some sort of Google pocket appliance… integrated with Google personal home page. So you can read (not respond to) your Gmail, check the weather, stocks, movie times, quick glance at headlines, (not post on OSN) or quick things like that.
I’m sure it would sell better than the internet appliances that they expected people to leave at home, because they would be where people want the internet to be that it isn’t.