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Remote working: PDA and mobile phone roundup. By Nigel Harris

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25th Apr 2007
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Mobile computing devices have moved on since the days of the first Palm Pilot and the Psion Organizer. For the accountant in business or practice, the tools are available right now to run a mobile office in the palm of your hand and keep in touch with customers, clients and colleagues worldwide. We are seeing major hardware improvements almost quarterly, so here is the state of the market as of April 2006.

Our mobile accountant has two basic requirements:
1. to carry and use Microsoft Office files (Outlook, Word, Excel – maybe even Powerpoint)PDA; and
2. to be able to send and receive email via the office mail server (access just to a webmail service such as Hotmail is too limiting)

PDA – Palm vs Windows
Until recently the natural solution has been a PDA, but while these meet objective 1 above they are an awkward solution to objective 2 unless they incorporate a built-in mobile phone. A standalone PDA such as an HP iPaq can access Internet and a POP3 email account by connecting it to a normal mobile phone via infra-red or Bluetooth. Both Palm OS and Windows Mobile PDAs work fine in this scenario. It’s a workeable, if rather inelegant solution, but it looks like its days are numbered. Leading PC vendor Dell recently announced that it has discontinued its popular Axim Pocket PCs. Industry commentators are pointing to this as a clear sign that standalone PDAs are on the way out as converged voice and data devices – i.e smartphones - take over.

This type of device is likely to survive as a niche product offering some other feature – a good example is HP’s iPAQ rx5900 Travel Companion, a fully-featured Windows Mobile PDA, but styled like a satellite navigation unit with a crystal clear landscape oriented colour display and integrated TomTom Navigator6 GPS, plus Internet and email using Wi-Fi (802.11b). Palm meanwhile has yet to produce an interesting non-phone PDA.

Smartphones take over
PDA makers have been quick to move into the mobile phone market. Palm’s main products now are the well-established Treo smartphones, while companies like HP have added chunky smartphone versions to its PDA range. The typical device sports a colour screen and QWERTY keypad with built-in software to provide email, Web browser and office applications. Palm’s Treo 650 and 680 models do this on the Palm OS platform while the 750 model runs Windows Mobile on the same hardware (and costs £100 or so more for similar functionality).

The alternative Symbian operating system is still alive and well, noteably in Nokia’s new N95 smartphone. This device is a study in how to cram everything into the smallest possible package – 5 megapixel camera, GPS, FM radio, WiFi (802.11b and g), quad-band GSM, EDGE and GPRS, stereo Bluetooth, infra-red and USB! Operation is via a two-way sliding phone keypad though, no touch screen or QWERY keys, so text input is slower than on a PDA-style device.

HTC has a range of interesting Windows Mobile 5 & 6 smart phones and PDA phones, most interesting being the HTC Advantage, due for release in May 2006, which looks like a mini laptop PC but runs the new Windows Mobile 6 operating system and features a quad-band phone, huge 5-inch display and full mini keyboard plus 8GB hard drive, handy miniSD card slot and in-built GPS with TomTom NAVIGATOR 6 software. Like many newer devices it also sports a digital still camera (3Mpixels) and a second VGA camera for video calls. This is definitely a potential laptop replacement.

The new Windows Mobile 6 operating system includes enhanced security, including Remote Wipe which enables owners to wipe sensitive data from a lost device remotely and discretely.

BlackBerry, corporate favourite
BlackBerry has become synonymous with mobile computing devices in recent years, surprising in that it was late to join a market already dominated (apparently) by PDA and mobile phone makers. Its success was based on targeting large corporate users and selling them in-house BlackBerry Enterprise Servers to enable them to deliver Exchange (or Lotus Domino or Novell Groupwise) email direct to their staff, supplying ready-configured solutions out of the box. Suddenly the handheld device became the normal means of accessing corporate email for many mobile workers. For smaller organizations a BlackBerry can be configured to access a normal email account.

The BlackBerry 8800 is the latest model, the familiar wide-bodied device with screen and full QWERTY keypad. However, the slimmer Pearl and 7130 models offer the same functionality in a unit more like a conventional mobile phone by assigning two characters to each key.

The dawn of Ultra-Mobile PCs?
Ultimately, many mobile workers would prefer to carry the full power of a PC, but size and convenience, not to mention security concerns, prevent this. Assuming security precautions can be take there are some viable options here. Tablet PCs – laptops with touch screens – failed to attract much interest, but now we have ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) such as Samsung’s Q1. This is not a PDA but a fully-fledged tablet PC (ie there’s no keyboard) running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 from ROM with 20-60 GB of storage on flash memory instead of a hard disk drive and a 7-inch screen capable of displaying DVD video.

The Q1's built-in 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11bg wireless and Bluetooth 2.0 make it a very versatile device. For voice communications it can use VoIP telephony rather than a mobile phone service. These are expensive for devices targeted primarily as high-end media players and PDAs, but for anyone who wants real PC power on the move, they are well worth considering.

The OQO Model 1, UBiQUiO 701 and ASUS R2H are similar unimaginatively named devices. The latter includes biometric fingerprint authentication to improve security.

See also
PDA/mobile phone round-up: Update
IT Zone's hardware page for further news and articles

Are you a mobile accounting pioneer? As part of a forthcoming feature, AccountingWEB is going to look at the changing working patterns and technologies used by our members. What systems do you use and how well suited are they to the demands of working with accounting information? Post your comments below and let us know if you would be willing to take part in a case study article.

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By david_terrar
25th Apr 2007 17:53

A bit more on the BlackBerry
I just wanted to chip in a couple of things on the BlackBerry. (I'm a fan, with an 8700.)

The non-corporate, end user BlackBerry Internet Service can actually accept up to 10 different e-mail accounts (including things like Gmail), is very straightforward to use and configure, and so makes it a very good choice for the small business user.

I think the key reason the BlackBerry is so popular is to do with ease of use. The e-mail, calender, phone. SMS, browser, task and note facilities are all designed with the minimum of keystrokes or clicks compared to a Palm or Windows Mobile e.g. if you cursor on to a phone number in a mail message, when you click, it assumes you are going to call that number. To me it's like the iPod - a simple, straightforward interface that does the job, and no more. Too many features get in the way.

The downside is that it hasn't got those extra features like a digital camera or ability to play MP3s, but I prefer my camera and my iPod for those anyway.
David Terrar
Business Two Zero

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By taxshop
27th Apr 2007 16:26

I use an XDA exec from O2
This has phone, internet, email, (multiple accounts) ms office and syncs with outlook.
It has blue tooth and importantly WiFi so I can get onto my home and office internet and mail and not always using expensive GPRS. It also has a full qwerty keyboard and a folding, swivel screen. Windows mobile 5

Downside - its awkard - I sometimes miss calls fiddling with the screen and after a year the battery life is shortening and is unpredictable.

http://mobileguide.o2.co.uk/devices/device.jsp?deviceId=249&tab=1

It is also marketed under other brand (t-mobile and I-mate)

My contract is coming to an end and I'm looking for alternatives but find that very few devices have WiFi. Is this a plot to sell gprs. I may just have to buy a new battery!

Michael
PS just noticed that it's the Qtek 9000 on the HTC page that James mentioned

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By User deleted
27th Apr 2007 18:19

Worth mentioning..
Blackberry are going to release their email software separately, so it will work on a windows phone:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/04/23/rim_rolls_out_windows_bb_connect/

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By User deleted
30th Apr 2007 18:12

XDA Exec
Michael, I too have an XDA Exec, and an XDA Mini as backup, the Exec is excellent and it beats the Mini anyday, though as you say, it is very easy to miss calls, and often do, have given up with the carry case, and miss slightly fewer calls! When I used the Mini for a while I never missed a call, but didn't like the keypad.

I would be interested in what you get instead, because once you are used to the keypad etc, it is hard to change. I presume other devices synchronise to laptops & contacts etc.

Interestingly I am on my second XDA and there have been improvements on the first one, including slightly longer battery life. It was difficult over the first few months as it was some time before you could buy the batteries, eventually getting them from "Expansys". I have two spare batteries and never go out without a spare battery!!

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By User deleted
11th Jun 2007 11:13

Don't Buy Palm Treo 750
I have a Palm Treo 750, which runs Windows (not Palm) software. It is absolutely marvelous for everything except phone calls.

I'm not joking.

I have had three. The Palm fails to respond when there is an incoming call, so even when set on 30 sec delay (the max with Vodafone) before going to voicebank, it diverts to voicebank during the 3rd ring. The caller hears the RING tone long before the Palm rings.

You miss virtually every call, unless you're alone and the phone is in your hand.

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