By Richard Edel II
Q. What's going on with those hybrid cellphones - part phone, laptop and PDA. What are they and how do they work?

A. Hybrid cellphones are the technically nerdy persons answer to prayer. I can say that because I personally have one, the MDA from T-Mobile. In actuality, most all of these Windows hybrid phones you are seeing around are being manufactured by the Taiwanese Company HTC.

With all of these acronyms and techie words spinning around your head I will be giving you a index at the bottom of this article.

The Hybrid phones are mostly used by the business world, because of the email function on them (my sister and I can attest to that). Business people or nerds(Technically Savvy) people also can access the Internet, Microsoft Office, and, of course, games.
Here are some of the programs I have on my hybrid phone:

• Microsoft ®: Internet Explorer, Outlook Excel, Word, Power Point, Media Player, MSN Messenger
• ClearVue PDF ®- an Adobe PDF viewer
• Picture and Video Viewer
• ZIP, a compressed file opener
• Skype ® – Internet Phone(I can make calls very cheap Internationally Here)
• Atomic Canon ® – Tank Video Game
• Bubble Breaker ® – Video Game
• Solitaire – Card Video Game

These phones have many other capabilities. You can take pictures with the “usual” 1.3 mega-pixel camera, talk wirelessly with a bluetooth headset, organize your calender with Outlook and also have it remind you when appointments are near.

With a unlimited data plan from a provider most of the phones double as a portable modem, so if you have a laptop and are in a park you could be surfing the web with your phone connecting you to the world.

As you can see there are many programs that can be put on these hybrid phones, but you do not need to have a hybrid phone to get some of the great features. From you cell phone you can text message Google to get information. To do this text the information you are looking for: addresses, restaurants, weather, or almost anything to the number 466453 (“GOOGLE” on most devices). Google will text message you back with the information that you are looking for, and best of all, if you have a text messaging plan it is free (standard text messaging fees apply to those without text messaging plans).

Those without text messaging plans can still benefit. It is cheaper to text Google the information you want, most cellphone carriers charge $1.50 for a 411 call, and most cellphone carriers only charge 10 cents for sending and receiving messages so your grand total would be only 20 cents.

I have had these crazy hybrid phones for over four years, and love them. The world is becoming more mobile, so you as the consumer might be getting one of these hybrid phones sooner than you think.

Acronym Index
PDA – Personal Digital Assistant
MDA – Multi Digital Assistant
HTC – High Tech Computer Corp.
PDF – Portable Document Format
Bluetooth – short range wireless connection used as if you were connected with a wire
Pixel – photo cell which capture a image (as Mega-Pixel would be 1024 Cells)