PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) is now becoming an indispensable “toy” for the youth and tech enthusiasts. A Palm? A Pocket PC? Or perhaps a trendy “PDA phone”?
A series of renowned PDA brands have “invaded” Vietnam with names like O2, HP, Sony Ericsson, Lenovo, and Pa-tech… They have swept away the remnants of the old “brick” phones. Nowadays, the image of a device the size of a hand, which requires a stylus to tap on the screen, is no longer strange…
The “Secondary” Players
This is a story about a simple PDA enthusiast: Vân, a college student majoring in networking. Coming from a poor family, Vân is always among the top three or four students in her class. Her secret is simple: at home, during internships, or in lectures, Vân always carries her HP PDA. Thanks to it, Vân can look up an English-Vietnamese dictionary related to information technology. She can also read e-books on networking and use it as an IP computer. She records audio while studying and preparing for Cisco exams…
Many superior features are integrated into the device, despite its shortcomings: it lacks mobile phone functionality, the speed is not high, and it runs Windows 2003, which has many limitations for installations… But for Vân, it’s an economic calculation: when she first started learning English, she considered asking her parents to buy a dictionary pen, which only served language learning and cost around 3 million VND. Using this old PDA, Vân can learn much more for just about 2 million VND. It’s a win-win situation.
On a PDA forum, there’s a young guy who attracts attention and annoyance from many. He’s a high school student who always boasts about himself while addressing adults as “I” and showing off to the “big players” of PDA in Saigon. What does he own? An HP PDA 1910. To “integrate” mobile phone functions, he also uses a Nokia 6100.
Additionally, he has a PSP (PlayStation Portable) and an iPod Shuffle 512. That’s it. His total assets, if exchanged, might barely get him an O2 Iis, a secondary toy for a “big player” of PDA phones. But on the forum, he brags, “I’m an IT pro! I’m the first to use a PDA in school…”.
The “Premium” Players
There’s a director who is heavily addicted to PDAs and laptops. But her journey into this luxurious hobby began with a very ordinary story: seeing her busy sister, a relative from abroad sent a PDA phone, hoping it would assist her sister in her work. Like many others, holding the bulky device with overwhelming features, she was completely clueless about how to utilize its advanced functionalities.
Everyone faces challenges when using high-end devices if they are not knowledgeable. An acquaintance advised her to visit a specialized online forum for handheld devices. Grabbing onto this lifeline, she quickly accessed the forum and got to know some people, including a user named C. She thought everyone in the forum was an intellectual with a shared interest in exchanging knowledge about PDAs; little did she know that C. was a dealer of “monstrous” devices.
In the very first “consultation,” C. criticized her device without holding back. He “suggested” a new device, urging her to exchange her old one plus some cash. She agreed. The ball was rolling. From then on, C. freely advised her. With an interest in technology and high-end devices, she listened to everything and continuously swapped devices. The unfortunate thing was that each old device she bought from C. often cost more than the new ones of the same type.
Then C. started advising her on laptops. Viao, IBM… the most fashionable brands were also purchased through C. One day, she realized she was involved with a price gouger. Each device sold by C. was not less than 3 million VND more expensive than market price. Now she had learned her lesson after “breaking ties” with C., but at least she had become well-versed in most device models, only losing about 1 million VND on each device.
K. is a wealthy but unpretentious Chinese businessman. Looking at the ordinary motorcycle he rides, no one would think K. is a serious PDA phone enthusiast. K. shared, “I stay away from gambling and women, but I’ll spend whatever on phones. Money is not important. If I like it, I’ll trade.” Any PDA enthusiast would be amazed by K.’s passion: he specializes in hunting for extremely rare items, trying out used gadgets first. If satisfied, K. sells the used device and searches for a brand new one that’s exactly the same.
Once he’s bored, K. gives them to family and friends to seek out new models. When the HP 6500 was newly released in Saigon, K. tracked it down to experiment with its GPS system to… navigate and not get lost. However, the device was advanced but the service in Vietnam was lacking. While abroad, the positioning error is only about 5-10 meters, the “maps” provided in Vietnam had addresses that were off by entire kilometers. K. got frustrated and sold it at a loss of not less than 5 million VND after a week. He then switched to a brand new Eten M500, priced at around 8 million VND. The Eten M500 has Chinese ROM, which is very convenient for Chinese users.
K. enjoyed it greatly, but after a while, he discovered it couldn’t be “upgraded” back to English due to software issues. Unable to find a new one, K. found someone using an identical model that had an English ROM but didn’t support Chinese. K. still agreed to trade. The other person was reluctant because he was very fond of his device. After much persuasion, K. finally got the Eten but had to pay an additional 2 million VND.
Here’s a story of a student integrating a PDA with a mobile phone, which is very beneficial. Instead of purchasing a PDA phone like the O2, costing around 10 million VND, this student uses an HP 3715 PDA and a Sony Ericsson mobile phone. The PDA has built-in camera, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi… To connect for messaging and calls via the mobile phone, he just needs to run the running voice GMS software. This way, he can use both the mobile phone and the Pocket PC. The total cost for both devices is under 7 million VND if new and under 5 million VND if used.
Another advantage is that the battery life of both devices lasts much longer compared to PDA phones, which are inherently weak in this area. Additionally, using a PDA phone is cumbersome, making texting while on the go difficult and often laggy. For this student, the biggest downside is having to carry two devices everywhere. One clipped to his belt and the other in his pocket. Missing either makes the mobile function unusable. He complains, “I always have to check if I’ve forgotten one. Missing either is extremely inconvenient.”
The Life of… PDA
In fact, even now, some amateur enthusiasts still confuse the concepts of PDA, Pocket PC, Palm, and PDA phone… These names alone highlight the vastness of the technology world. To clarify: PDA encompasses everything! It splits into five main lines based on the operating system that runs the device: Pocket PC (Windows OS), Palm (Palm OS), and three other lines running Linux, Symbian, and RIM.
Representatives of these lines include: Pocket PC from O2, HP… Palm has Treo (the PDA dubbed the smartest in the world) and Palm One… Linux has Motorola (notably the E680)… Symbian has Nokia, Sony Ericsson… RIM has BlackBerry… A PDA is merely a handheld computer or digital assistant if it has not integrated mobile phone functionalities. Once integrated, it becomes a PDA phone. The most recognized and first used in Vietnam was the Pocket PC phone line.
Here’s a bit of “history” about PDAs: since the 1990s, there have been Palm users in Saigon. By 2000, Pocket PCs began to gain recognition. In the last two years, PDA phones have become well-known and are now so widespread that you see styluses everywhere! The first devices recognized by enthusiasts were the O2 XDA with… antennas; no camera, no Bluetooth… At that time, O2 had not officially entered Vietnam. At the same time, Nokia launched the Nokia 9210 and Sony Ericsson announced the P800.
When these two companies released the Nokia 9210i and P900, O2 introduced the official O2 II and immediately dominated the PDA phone market. Following that, O2 released the O2 mini, O2 “S”, and O2 “i”. At that time, Sony Ericsson released the P910i – the “digital music king”; Nokia unveiled the modern “brick” generation, Nokia 9500, 9300… HP also launched the HP 650o (with a global positioning GPS system). Lenovo released the ET 960…. Many unique items from other brands were also imported: Pa-tech has Anextek. Then there’s Asus P 505, Qool 700… (items only sold in the USA, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong…).
One of the most stylish PDA lines today is O2. Enthusiasts have humorously given each model of this line very mundane names: the original O2 XDA is now called O2 “old.” O2 mini: “little lady,” “princess,” O2 XDAII – “flip flop.” O2 Exec has a rotating screen. Even the O2 IIs with a slide-out keyboard is referred to as “pants dropping”… One of the most renowned O2 enthusiasts among the city’s doctors is Mr. G. He is a physician, and his wife is a pharmacist selling medicine, and with a private clinic, it’s needless to say how wealthy he is; on average, he and his wife earn around 50 million VND each month.
In the medical field, reading professional literature, researching medicine, and diagnosing diseases are essential tasks… All these functions are encompassed in an O2 device. It’s no wonder that Mr. G. is so addicted to this line. Since the O2 IIi was released in Saigon, Mr. G. sought to buy one and became one of the first owners at the price of… 1,100 USD! Then, whenever O2 released a new model, he continuously traded: O2 IIs, O2 mini, O2 Exec… Each new purchase sold at a loss of no less than 300 USD is a trivial matter for him. Now that O2 has released the Atom, Mr. G. immediately acquired it and is quite satisfied with this device.
The wave of PDA phones has reached the enthusiasts in Saigon like this!
xuân ngọc – chức bình
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