Having an address book and planner has become a thing of the past. With todays PDAs you dont need that at all. PDAs are putting your office in your pocket. You can manage your contacts and meetings, send and receive emails, listen to music, play games and movies, write professional documents, take photos and connect to the internet. PDAs were originally called Palm Pilots. They mainly used it for storing information. Today it is just as good as a laptop.

PDAs also have its limitations. Inputting information is done by handwriting or by a miniature keyboard. The speed of inputting information is far less than a normal laptop or desktop. It usually takes double the time to type an email than on a laptop. The battery power also isnt that great comparing to the new laptops especially if it has a color screen. The applications you can use are slightly inferior to the application used on normal computers. The reason for that is because the user has less control over the program.

Despite these limitations, PDAs are getting more popular and better every year. People need them to do their computing on the go. You dont want to carry a laptop everywhere but having a PDA in your pocket is no fuss. The most common use for PDAs are word processing, database management, banking, setting up spreadsheets for data and also for the occasional game. A very important tool is being able to synchronize the files on you PDA with the files on your computer. It is hard work to keep things like emails synchronized with your computer if you dont use that function.

Two of the well known PDA suppliers are Palm and Microsofts Windows Mobile device. The Palm Pilot was the first PDA and they also managed to keep up with technology and produced amazing devices. People have different opinions of which one they prefer. Windows Mobile runs on an operating system similar to Windows on normal computers and because of that many people prefer the similarities. Others feel that the Windows Mobile device is difficult to navigate in comparison to the Palm.

There are many great PDAs around today but one thing that is very important is to make sure that the applications you are using on your normal computer or laptop is compatible with the applications on your PDA. Take time to test some of the models available. The handwriting recognition PDAs are difficult to get used to but when you do it is really fun. Ive also spoke to users who said that they could never really get used to it. So if you are a slow learner it might be better to stick with the keyboard. My advice will be if you are going to use it mainly for email, then getting one with a keyboard is a safe bet.