Robert Scoble, a "Technical Evangelist" at Microsoft, has gained quite a following with his very interesting blog called
Sobleizer where not only does he have some great discussion about bloggers, podcasting and other interesting tech topics, but he also has access to people in the know at Microsoft. That means he can provide the inside scoop at times when most bloggers can't.
Recently he
posted a very nice entry about PDAs. The Dell x50v, in particular, but what he has to say applies to pretty much all modern PDAs. In a nutshell, he says that he was amazed at their value. He had been under the impression that his smart phone was all he needed, but learned that there's really a lot going for the PDA platform that gives it a lot of additional value, even over the portable media centers.
Quote:
I thought that all I really need is my SmartPhone. After all, that plays audio, video, does text fairly well.
I assumed that for people who wanted to play more video, or that wanted a screen that they could actually see some detail in the video that a portable media center would be the ticket.
I'm now convinced I'm wrong. I'm convinced that the PocketPC form factor is the better way to go. Here's how Josh convinced me:
First, it has a VGA screen. 640x480. That doesn't sound impressive, but when you see this screen your eyes will pop out. Ken Levy showed me a Toshiba that also had a VGA screen. I didn't understand the benefits when Ken showed me his, though, cause Ken didn't show me video playing on his
|
Very interesting was his additional observation that not only can it do RSS and video, but that it is a great fit for the new videoblogging and podcasting trends.
Check out both
this article and his
blog in general.
The more he learns about PDAs, the more he'll get wowed! Hey, maybe he'll start evangelizing PDA technology heartily also!