There is a massive gap between ultra-mobile laptops and usable pdas. Laptops are too big to really be mobile, and they don’t have instant-on capability. Pdas are not powerful enough to really calculate, and they don’t have keyboards for effective input. I see a big hole. What’s going to fill it?

Smartphones and Pda phones have just topped the One Billion mark in worldwide sales, but many of those sales are to third world countries. Many of the newer phones are developing into mature products capable of gps, wifi, bluetooth, running mobile versions of office and sport nice, albeit small, keyboards. The HTC Athena comes to mind as a very cool device. At the same time, full fledged computers are getting smaller, like the OQO 2 . Very cool. I love the idea of the UMPC (ultra mobile pc), but they don’t have real keyboards or power.

But my dreams of carrying only one device are misguided. It’s not going to happen. Nothing can fit that hole. When I need a computer to work, I need a large screen and I want an optical drive or 2 and usb ports. But they don’t make good phones. Or mp3 players. Or gps’s. But if the HTC Athena had a version of Windows XP, not mobile, and had phone capabilities, and usb ports for optical drives…

I think we’re getting somewhere. I feel it. What we need is something like the F14 Tomcat, that has variable geometry wings, which are swept back during high speed, and moved forward during low speed. We need an adaptable computer that can change shape according to need. Fit in a pocket when not in use, and expand when in use. This item will ideally be able to be ordered with any option such as phone network type(s), operating system, bluetooth, software, and tons more.  It’s coming. That’s my opinion.