Demand continues growing for all-in-one electronic equipment
By Jason Dooley, jdooley@bgdailynews.com -- 270-781-1700
Fewer gadgets with more functions is the mantra as manufacturers and retailers try to keep up with the ever-growing demand for personal electronic equipment.
The days of carrying around a digital camera, cellular telephone, personal digital assistant, MP3 player and other such gizmos may soon be over as more and more of the newer gadgets on the market combine those functions into one unit, said Chris Raines, a sales associate at Best Buy in Bowling Green.
“We’re not really selling as many of the MP3 players anymore because a lot of the new PDAs can play MP3s and do a lot of other things, also,” Raines said. “As the manufacturers bring out new models, a lot of the time they incorporate the features of two or three of the earlier models into one.”
PDAs still sell well, attracting customers from soccer moms looking to keep track of children’s schedules to businessmen looking to keep track of the stock market, he said.
Among serious business professionals, the Pocket PC line, including models such as the Compaq iPAQ, is the most popular, while more casual users tend to be attracted to Palm Pilots, which include models like the Palm Zire and Sony Clie, Raines said.
“They’re really trying to get the PDAs to the point where they can focus your whole life into one unit,” he said. “They’re not there yet, but they’re moving ever closer to that.”
Price and functionality are the overriding factors for most people in selecting PDAs, Raines said.
With prices ranging from about $90 for the Zire to more than $600 for top-of-the-line Pocket PC machines, the number of options can be overwhelming.
Jeptha Sumter, a network consultant for Western Kentucky University, said he uses a Compaq iPAQ to keep track of appointments and also to scan barcodes of new equipment for the college’s inventory.
Sumter wrote the database software he uses for the inventory process himself, he said.
“(The PDAs) were originally purchased for the barcode project and for the school’s wireless Internet project,” Sumter said. “But I have to schedule a lot more things now, so I’m using it more and more.”
While PDAs are assuming more and more entertainment functions, manufacturers of MP3 players – personal stereo sets that use computer files encoded in MP3 format to store music – are scrambling to offer more functions and compete, Raines said.
The most ambitious of the new-line MP3 machines is the Apple iPod, which can store as much as 40 megabytes of files.
The iPod is comparable in capacity to the hard drive of most personal computers, and many iPod users actually use the gadgets to back up their hard drives, Raines said.
The biggest drawback for most potential iPod customers is the price.
At $300 to $400, the iPod is about three to four times as expensive as most other MP3 players on the line, he said.
Meanwhile, makers of cellular phones are also moving toward making their gadgets into one-stop life organizers.
Phones with built-in PDAs or digital cameras are becoming increasingly popular, said Tina Peterson, a salesperson at the T-Mobile kiosk in Greenwood Mall.
“They’ve been really popular as they’ve started to get a little cheaper,” Peterson said. “Especially with younger people.”
Many of the newest cell phones offer wireless Internet with full-color LCD displays, and others can take and send digital photos via the Internet.
Not having to have a land-line Internet connection to check and send e-mail is a valuable asset for many cell phone users, Peterson said.
“It keeps you from having to be chained to your desktop PC,” she said. “You can just do everything over your phone."
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