Handheld PCs reborn

At the recent 3GSM conference in Barcelona two interesting phones made the headlines. The first was Nokia’s new E90 smartphone, the natural progression of its own 9000 series phones. The second was iMate’s new Ultimate 7150. To judge by the press coverage of the event it was as though a whole new form factor had suddenly been invented, quite forgetting the fact that clamshell devices, albeit sans phone module, have been around for a very long time.

In my mind, this form factor has always had a special appeal. Quite apart from protecting the screen, it also allows you to have a near full sized keyboard, with keys which actually have some travel. None of those press-and-they-barely-move keys you get with slide-out keyboards.

The very pinnacle of such devices, and I realize that I will no doubt rile the EPOC fanatics out there, were the Handheld PCs. I say ‘were’ because the platform is no longer supported, and has not been for nearly seven years. Like its Pocket PC and Smartphone counterparts, Handheld PC runs on Windows CE. Unlike them though, the native build closely resembles a Windows 95 desktop. With the help of skinning tools you can actually make it resemble any Windows desktop you like, including Vista.

I have a Samsung Izzi Pro, a Handheld PC developed at the height of interest in these devices when there were many companies churning them out. There were later, better specced Handheld PCs released subsequently, the Jornada 720 being one of the best, but never again would there be the range of manufacturers or hardware variations. The Izzi Pro has a great swivel and fold form factor which allows it to convert between a traditional laptop and a tablet, and it has a near full size keyboard, which I can type faster on than my more conventional laptop!