What is a PDA and what is the difference between it and a normal cellphone.?

Answer 1

Simply put, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) organizes your daily life with contact lists, calendar, To-Do lists, and notes. Newere PDAs also include WiFi, Bluetooth, voice-recorders and gorgeous large screens.

I would recommend either the Palm Tungsten T/X or the Palm Life Drive as the great PDAs available today with built-in WiFi and Bluetooth for Internet connectivity:

Tungsten T/X
http://www.palm.com/us/products/handhelds/tx/

LifeDrive
http://www.palm.com/us/products/mobilemanagers/lifedrive/

Althought cell phones have had similar PDA-like capabilities, they were not as easy to use, and not nearly as powerful. New cellphones that combine a PDA with a cell phone are called "smartphones."

One of the best smartphones on the market today is the Palm Treo:

http://www.palm.com/us/products/smartphones/

As smartphones become more powerful, PDA will phase out and be included in all new smartphones.

Answer 2

Well put, Andy and Eddie.

I'm a purist. Technically, PDAs and cellphones are NEVER the same thing.

To broadly generalize, a smartphone is a cellphone with PDA functionality (or a PDA with phone capabilities).
Some people would argue that the Treo is not enough phone AND not enough PDA. It is very, very trendy though.

To simplify things beyond normalcy, all smartphones can be described as "PDA-like". Not all PDAs are smartphones.

Note that I am implying that "regular" cellphones and smartphones are different entities.

Answer 3

I have used PDAs that are a better cellphone than my cellphone...the line between the two is almost getting to zero although, at the moment, the PDA is usually a larger, flatter, device with a much better screen that is touch sensitive.
With new cell phones that have a split body that slides or opens like a book, there is almost no difference.

Answer 4

Think PDA as miniature computers, because they are approaching laptops capability in many areas.

A normal cellphone is fixed to a certain group of features. Although Smartphone (normal phones with PDA reduced capability embedded in) will one day become the "normal" cellphone

Answer 5

a PDA is HELL to carry around.

but seriously, get it only if you need some serious scheduling and need to be connected to the net all day. otherwise its just a fancy mobile phone into which you can download games and movies.

it gets bogged down often and needs restarting periodically. if it crashes, you lose all your data, phone numbers, files unless you make it a habit to backup everytime you make a new entry.

O2 is a good PDA.