SmartPhones Fall Short Of PDA Or Laptop Replacement

Written by Adam Gosling

Wednesday, 02 August 2006

Industry research outfit In-Stat has predicted that Smartphones will grow from about 10 per cent marketshare to as much as 25 per cent over the next five years. But the researcher stops short of predicting they will gain acceptance as a widespread replacement for PDAs or laptops. While In-Stat found Smartphone users were more likely to consider their device as "essential to their business" than PDAs or laptop users were, it seems PDA and laptop owners are not quite ready to make the switch. "Wireless manufacturers have more work to do before converged phones start taking market share from other devices instead of just complementing their sales," says Bill Hughes, In-Stat analyst. "Users want a number of feature improvements including better keyboards, automatic synching with other devices, applications that have the same look and feel as on other devices, and expandable screens." This, says In-Stat, means that Smartphone makers can't expect automatic acceptance of SmartPhones and widespread replacement of PDAs and laptops. Related news items Palm Goes Consumer With Treo 500v -12/09/2007 First Windows 6 Palm In Australia -12/09/2007 Fujitsu Siemens To Give Up On PDAs -13/08/2007 Linux On Lenovo Laptops -06/08/2007 Motorola Nudged Out Of Second Place -04/08/2007 Newer news items Nokia Nseries Due To Arrive Soon -26/09/2006 Converged Devices Continue Growth In Q2: IDC -13/09/2006 40 Million New Mobile Phone Users Per Month -10/09/2006 Qantas To Allow BlackBerries In Flight -28/08/2006 Consumer BlackBerry On The Way? -20/08/2006 Older news items Two New Blackberry Handsets At Vodafone -31/07/2006 LG Has Major Hit With Chocolate -24/07/2006 Err, I think it's a Nokia ... -19/07/2006 50 Million RAZRs And Counting -19/07/2006 The CyberShot Advantage -13/07/2006 Tag This Now: