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This story was printed from Anchordesk,
located at http://review.zdnet.com/AnchorDesk/.
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How to stay in touch...without your cell phone
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| By David Coursey: Executive Editor, AnchorDesk |
| Wednesday, July 2, 2003 |
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Instant messaging is one of the best reasons for buying a PDA with built-in Wi-Fi, or for adding wireless to an existing handheld. I noticed this after I started carrying around the Toshiba e750 I've been testing, just so I'd never be out of touch with coworkers and friends.
In a given day, I usually have more IM "conversations" with coworkers than I do phone calls. I think this is a good thing, provided the topics can be covered with telegraphic-like brevity, punctuated with emoticons. The Toshiba runs a mobile version of MSN Messenger with which I can IM everyone I know at Microsoft as well as a bunch of friends.
I had a couple of big questions when I began playing with IM on this handheld:
How do you enter text?
There are a couple of ways. One is to use the on-screen, pop-up "soft" keyboard. For short passages, this isn't as bad as you'd think. As you enter text, the handheld tries to guess the word you're entering and then allows you to select it. It doesn't try to guess short words, and you have to enter three or four characters before it'll venture its guess. As you enter more letters, the guess changes. It adds frequently used words to the list from which it guesses.
You can also preload ten phrases into a My Text menu, from which you can then select and send your canned text. This makes it easy to give short answers and to store a larger answer that explains you're on a handheld. Mine says, "I am on my PDA and unable to give more than 'yes' or 'no' answers at this time. If that isn't OK, I will message you later."
If your Pocket PC accepts or comes equipped with a keyboard, you can use it to enter text; this may or may not be more convenient than the on-screen keyboard. If you need to enter a lot of text and have a folding keyboard, it's probably a help. I am not sure a tiny keyboard, like the ones that slip onto the bottom of some iPaq models, is much of an improvement over the on-screen keyboard.
While you wouldn't want to write a book, this column, or even a very long paragraph on a handheld, writing short messages isn't as terrible as you might expect.
What's the best setup?
Pocket PC does not have a monopoly on mobile messaging, and Wi-Fi isn't the only way to connect.
AOL Mobile has deals with a number of wireless carriers, as does Sprint. (I'll be testing their AOL Web interface next week.) I have a good friend who uses AOL and a Nextel phone, which she says works very well. Using a wireless (as opposed to Wi-Fi) device allows you to send IMs from anyplace that has coverage. But make sure you're on a billing plan that includes data or you may (as I did once) get a surprisingly high bill.
The Palm i705--now available for around $100, less with rebates--has built-in AOL messaging; there's a Palm Yahoo client, too. A variety of third-party clients work with Internet-connected wireless devices, but I caution you to check on compatibility before writing a check: Some devices and networks may not support all the clients that are available for Palm OS.
That said, if I wanted to IM from a Palm device, I'd buy a Treo from my cellular carrier. For me and Sprint, that would mean a 300; from other carriers, you might get a different model.
I've played with IM and SMS on telephone handsets and find it painful to use. I really like the larger color screens of most PDAs and some phones if I want to do messaging.
If I need wide-area wireless coverage, I'm still very attached to two-way e-mail on my BlackBerry, which has a small but usable (with practice) keyboard. For use on the LAN or at a hotspot, however, the Wi-Fi Pocket PC seems pretty ideal.
Is this useful?
Wireless IM is a good way to answer short questions, ideally using canned text. That's what I found myself doing, usually promising to get back to the sender when I returned to a "real" PC.
It's also a good, quick way to receive alerts when you aren't sitting at your desk. Having your PDA or cell phone light up with an IM may not be as dramatic as having someone break into your meeting and hand you a note, which you then unfold, earnestly read, give a thoughtful glance, and then excuse yourself--"Sorry, the CEO needs me to attend to something immediately." But it's a great way of getting out of boring meetings, and it works well once coworkers and clients get used to you checking your PDA from time to time.
There's far more to say on this topic, and my thinking will no doubt evolve a bit over time. But I've enjoyed the Toshiba and MSN Messenger so much, I wanted to tell you right away. More to come.
What do you think? Do you ever IM from your PDA? Could you ever hit the road without your cell phone? TalkBack to me!
