Why Do Computer Mags Hate PDAs?

What Is It With Computer Magazines?

During my present bout of insomnia I've been reading PC Advisor, which is, in my opinion, a pretty good publication. Apart from the fact that it pretty much ignores PDAs. I can't help but wonder why this might be. Surely computer owners and enthusiasts are likely users of these great little machines?

It can't be a prejudice against small computers as they do extensive reviews of laptops. It can't be that there's so much coverage in specialist magazines that there's no point in trying to compete with them as there're only two in the UK market. Yet if there's any comment on PDAs at all it's usually so brief you could be forgiven for thinking that they're trying to fit it into something with severe memory constraints.

No, I think that there is at best, a blindness and at worst, a prejudice towards the machines in the computer press. But why? Why are laptops seemingly accepted when PDAs are not?

I think it's because despite the fact that they should know better, they do share the general public's perception of them as pointless gadgets and a waste of time. To most people the PDA is nothing more than a glorified filofax©. That was true, once upon a time. My Sharp IQ 7000 was nothing more than an electronic diary. Its ABC keyboard was painfully slow for inputting data. Yet that was fifteen years ago and the scorn and comments heaped upon my Axim 50v are pretty much unchanged in that decade and a half.

Unlike the PDA.

My present machine-only my third- has 128 times more RAM than my first computer did and I can't begin to calculate how much faster the processor is. It plays music and video-all the way up to full movies. It plays games-well, it should; it has a graphics card. I can do my accounts on the fly, write letters, write and send e-mail, read books, surf the web, run a GPS system, plan a trip, operate anything with a remote control and even translate both in writing and just by speaking to it.

It even still serves me as a Filofax©. Except no paper diary backs itself up, rings alarms or dials the number I just looked up.

So why the scorn? Why are these great devices all-but ignored not only by computer journalists but by computer shops? Go into your local PC World and see if you can find the PDAs without a map. I guarantee you that they'll be in the most obscure corner, low down and probably bolted into a display so that you can't handle them. They won't have any extra software added so the they can show off their abilities, either.

Can you imagine a multi-media PC or laptop sitting on a shelf with only Outlook installed to let the world know what they can do? Joe Public would never put one in his house. No, they come with lovely little demo discs that let anyone walking past see them singing, dancing and playing Quake. Mind you, it's not entirely the shops' fault; the manufacturers don't send out demo machines with stuff like that pre-installed, and you can hardly expect the stores to set up PCs to install software to the PDA they can't sell because it's had to be used as a demo model. How hard would it be to send out a SD card with a demo of some description installed on that?

So, the teenage wage-slave doesn't know what they do or are capable of. They can’t demonstrate them and so they add to the notion that all they can be is a glorified diary. The magazines rarely refer to them at all and when they do these days it's usually about the 'death' of the PDA. Apparently, smartphones are now so good that there's no need for a separate device. Not for me. I like my phone and my PDA being separate. Much of the time just having one device would be fine, but I don't want my PDA when I go out for the evening, for example.

My phone and my PDA both exchange the same data with my PC, so I'm triple-backed up. I'm not going to lose all my details if one or other device goes missing or breaks down. If my phone rings I don't need to stop whatever I'm doing to answer it. Which would be a particular pain if I were using a separate keyboard. Because of the form factor of phones they tend to have smaller screens, so watching films on them is a poor experience.

Why not use a laptop if I'm on the move?  Quite simply, for most people and most purposes they're just too powerful. Most people on the move do a bit of text editing, some number crunching and maybe run some presentations. I can do all of that with a device that fits into my briefcase instead of needing its own to be carried around in. Remember I mentioned insomnia? I've just written this in bed without disturbing my wife or having to get up. Try that with a laptop.