My PDA and I. Priceless relationship.

From the electronic devices I might have bought in my life, my PDA is one of the most useful.

The past year, while I was working in Barcelona, my boss lent me a PDA. It was the first time I put my hands on one of these little machines, I knew about them, I have seen pictures, but I never have used them. I didn’t realize how practical these things could be.

I’m not exaggerating if I say that with a PDA happens the same as with the MasterCard, it’s priceless. I can carry with me in the size of a typical wallet everything I need to bring with me. In example: a street map, a road map of Spain, an excel with my expenditures, an outlook with all the information about the people I know, a calendar to write down my dates and important events, a diary, a dictionary of Spanish, another one of English, and another one English-Spanish, last trip photos, comics. Think about how much it will weight in the usual format.

Just take in consideration the outlook functionality, the improvement over the outlook made of paper is substantial. You always have space to write down one more phone or address. And you can copy all the information to keep a backup in case you lost the PDA. The only drawback is getting out of battery, something that can never happen if we use the paper outlook. But this is like a mobile phone, depending on the use you make the longer the battery will last without having to recharge.

Some examples of situations in which the PDA is useful:

• Case 1: You are having an intellectual conversation with some friends, discussing what a passage from The Lord of The Rings says. There’s no agreement. To get your PDA out of your pocket, open the book and bring light to this problem is priceless.
• Case 2: You are dating with some friends in a street you don’t know, there’s no problem to arrive, you have you PDA, your map, and no problem.
• Case 3: Someone asks you if you have a film. You look in your PDA your “films I own” archive, and you can answer without doubts.
• Case 4: Your boss tells you that the information is in an email he sent to you. Turn on the PDA and you retrieve the mail that you need.

If you see me in the street with my PDA, I might be looking like a freak and not like a normal guy with his minicomputer to make his life easier. Just a few years ago the freaks were those who own a mobile phone, today are what hasn’t got. Time will tell.


My Fujitsu/Siemens Pocket Loox 420