You can catch glimpses of the long-promised digital convergence -- voice, data and multimedia all working together -- on your office systems, home computer and home entertainment system. Yet, we've taken surprisingly big steps toward convergence in systems that fit in the palm of your hand.
Let's be honest, the smart phones, wireless messaging devices and PDAs have a mile to go before they work just the way everyone wants them to work. But, if you look back at where they were a few years ago, they've come a long way in a short time.
Our testers worked with a mix of representative devices, a color PDA, a wireless messaging unit, and a couple of hybrid phone/PDAs. If you've worked with these devices for any length of time, you know that each type does one thing well, others not so well. So, using a phone as an e-mail device can still be a pain, and downloading Web pages to any handheld can be slow and visually challenging.
Despite their drawbacks, what's notable about the current crop of handhelds is that they are getting better at doing more. You have to keep in mind that just a few years ago, even simple tasks, such as getting data into a PDA or viewing news headlines on a cell phone, weren't worth the effort. Now, they're getting there, fast.
