Over the past dozen columns of Grousings, Ive occasionally, sometimes vehemently, nominated various bits of gadgetry to an ad hoc deathwatch list. In particular I singled out Polaroid photos, home photo printers; disposable batteries; and Sprints WiMAX venture Xohm (maybe even Sprint itself, if they arent careful). Some of those predictions are necessarily more long-term than others, and some probably wishful thinking.
I had to laugh when I saw that your example picture was a Handspring PDA. As it happens, you picked the PDA that had the most versatile expansion capabilities of the time, and up to the present. You have a PDA with a phone and camera built in? A phone and camera were two of the most popular modules. I still use the Handspring Pro with Sprint phone plugin daily. They do what I need to do (which doesn't include mobile web surfing) and can be had cheaply via ebay. In my line of work I'm rough on equipment, and don't want to spend $3-500 when I break something. I picked up a half dozen phone modules for $20 total, and the PDA's are going for about $50. Between Pocket Quicken and a roll-your-own database I really don't need to get on the bleeding edge. So long as I have to crawl under things and carry other heavy stuff around I want a PDA/phone that's either very tough or very cheap to replace. Right now the latter option is the only one available.
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