Smartphone Thoughts: From the Perspective of a Pocket PC Veteran - Samsung�s Blackjack SmartPhone Reviewed

Windows Mobile has come a long way since the days of the first Handheld PCs running Windows CE. Those early machines were mostly superseded by the Palm-Sized PCs, designed as a competitor to the then hot Palm brand PDAs. Those units met with limited success. Microsoft followed up by fine-tuning the Palm-Sized PC concept, and the result was the Pocket PC. This concept achieved far greater success and more sophisticated and powerful units that still follow that original design philosophy are available today.

Both the Palm and Pocket PC platforms thrived for some time, but the PDA design philosophy has been challenged by the concept of the convergence device. The past few years have seen strong demand for a variety of portable electronic devices (PDAs, MP3 players and cell phones). Eventually, someone decided it would be better to carry a single device that combines the functionality of multiple devices.

While the concept of such a device seems appealing, the perfect design has proven to be elusive, since key qualities that are desirable in a cell phone are undesirable in a PDA and vice versa. Cell phone manufacturers tried to satisfy the demand for convergence devices by adding features such as PIM software to traditional cell phone designs. Microsoft tried to leverage their experience in PDAs with the Pocket PC Phone Edition, which took a pretty much traditional PDA and added phone capabilities to it.

Size is probably the most significant contributing factor when looking at suitability for the task with a phone or a PDA. Small size is generally considered a plus for a cell phone. The immensely popular Motorola Razr is touted as being one of the slimmest phones available and other manufacturers have responded with their own versions of the ultra slim phone. Having owned a Razr, I�ll admit that even with a leather case, I could slip it into a front pants pocket and barely notice that it was there.

While small size has its appeal with PDAs such as Pocket PCs, there are limits to how small they can be without compromising their expected functionality. Pocket PCs have certainly gotten much smaller than the rather brick-like proportions of one of the first units, the Cassiopeia E-115. My current Pocket PC, a Loox N560, takes up about half the volume and weighs 1/3 less than the Casio classic. To achieve its comparatively svelte dimensions, the N560 sports a smaller screen than the Casio (3.5� vs. 3.9�). It would seem that screen size is the main balancing act that Pocket PC designers have to perform. A large screen is great for legibility, but results in an overall unit size that some may find too cumbersome. On the other hand, a smaller screen results in a more compact unit that�s more easily carried, but others may find the smaller screen difficult to read.

For years, I�ve used my Pocket PCs as sort of a laptop �lite�. I take my N560 to every meeting at work and use it to take notes, utilizing Calligrapher or Fitaly along with Phatnotes, kind of like a small Tablet PC. And the available laptop class applications such as Softmaker�s Planmaker allow me to, for example, reference a key Excel report with around 15000 rows that changes frequently. This is the kind of functionality that defines a powerful PDA for me, functionality that a convergence device would have to provide for it to substitute for my Pocket PC. Yet I want my cell phone to be small enough to slip into my pants pocket and remain unobtrusive. These largely incompatible characteristics are what designers are trying to combine with the latest round of SmartPhones such as the Motorola Q and the Samsung Blackjack, the subject of this article. Let�s take a look at how successful they�ve been.

For purposes of comparison, I�ll use the Motorola Razr to represent the contemporary cell phone and the Loox N560 to represent the contemporary �classic style� Pocket PC.