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Latest PDA Phone From Hitachi

Techstination feature for Wednesday, August 13, 2003

The latest all in one PDA Phone from Hitachi. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Sprint PCS has begun selling a hybrid device from Hitachi... the G1000. It's a PocketPC with a built in keyboard, a cell phone and a digital camera. It's considerably bigger than other PocketPC phones... and carries a price tag of about 650 dollars. But Hitachi's Gerry Corbett says...

"This particular device will be very appropriate for the enterprise market. Particularly for the mobile user who wants all the functionality of their PDA and their cell phone and perhaps some of the functionality of their laptop in one single small device."

While the device ships with a 400 MHz Xscale processor from Intel... the operating system is PocketPC 2002... not the latest version from Microsoft. The use of Sprint's high speed data network for Web surfing and email costs 30 dollars a month in addition to whatever voice plan you select. The company offers a variety of PDA phones... including the much smaller Treo from Handspring. Kevin Packingham, director of business marketing at Sprint PCS, says the size of the G1000 should not be a drawback...

"We don't expect this size to be appropriate for everyone. But we do expect it to be just the right fit for people who are, in many cases, trying to eliminate a laptop or some other type of computing device."

Sprint hopes the built in camera will prove useful to real estate and insurance professionals. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.