Price

Back in the days when PDAs were first released, they were very expensive. It was so easy to decide between buying a expensive PDA with limited functionality and a full-fledged leather-clad paper organizer at a fraction of the price. But things have changed since then. Now, PDA phones combine PDA functionality into a compact mobile phone. In fact, some consider the PDA functionality a "free" feature of their mobile phones.

While paper organizers are still cheaper (with some high-end exceptions), price is no longer a decisive factor as many people now own mobile phones. PDA phones are priced only as much as high-end mobile phones, and that will drop over time. So, price is even less likely to be a concern in the future, as it is today.

Data Retrieval

You are one forgetful fella. You remember making an urgent appointment with one of your clients somewhere next month, but you forgot what the date was exactly. If you are using a paper organizer, you may need to spend 15-20 minutes flipping through it.

With a PDA phone though, all you need to do is open up ‘Find’, and key in the name of the person you are looking for. In less than a minute, you can pinpoint the appointment and read up on the details. You can also pull up all the information you have on your client.

15-20 minutes of flipping through a paper organizer versus a single minute using the PDA phone's Find utility. You be the judge.

Alerts

Most people who are serious about organizing will not need to set any alarms for upcoming appointments. This is because they will always glance through their organizers several times a day. However, the average Joe who’s not really an avid fan of organizing will love to have an organizer that is capable of alerting him to an appointment.

Although we look forward to a paper organizer that can do that, this is something that only the PDA phone is capable of doing. Hands down, the PDA phone bests the paper organizer.

Recurring Appointments

You’ve just joined a new company. They have an important company meeting every 3 days to discuss employee performance. You are new and everyone expects you to perform well and you don’t know any colleagues well enough to ask them to remind you about the meetings.

So you diligently write down the appointments in your paper organizer, in appointment slots 3 days apart. After finishing adding the appointments for that month, you begin to wonder if this is really worth your time and the company's money. Isn’t there a better way? You bet there is.

With PDA phones, you can set recurring appointments at any frequency you need. You don’t need to keep adding appointments manually as the appointments will automatically repeat themselves in future time slots.

This works great for recurring events like monthly loan payment dates, anniversaries and birthdays. It is also useful in reminding you about regular medical or dental check-ups.