Identify common handheld portable digital devices

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)
Pocket PC
  • Personal Digital Assistants, or PDAs as they are more commonly called, are handheld PCs designed to manage one’s day to day tasks. This can include keeping contact details, or organising appointments. The size of a PDA can vary but most are designed to be able to fit into your pocket. There are different types of PDAs:

  • The first type are Pocket Personal Computers or PPCs. Manufacturers of PPCs include companies like Compaq and HP. PPCs have a cut down version of Microsoft Windows called Microsoft Windows CE (Compact Edition).

  • Unlike PCs these do not have a mouse and keyboard so commands are sent to the device using a touch sensitive screen. This means that the user physically clicks on the icon on the screen to run programs. When the user needs to input text such as details of an appointment then they have to write on the screen and the PC will recognise the characters using hand writing recognition and input them to the screen.

    Psion
  • A second type of PDAs are those similar to Palm Pilots. These are exclusively made by Psion, and are based on a proprietary operating system.