This year has seen a major increase in the release of new hardware products for the Pocket PC and Smartphone. To fit them all in the space we had available, we created a new and more compact format that included the title of the product, a brief one-sentence description of the product, price, company name, and Web address. A more detailed description of each product is available on the vendor’s Web site or in Pocket PC magazine’s Encyclopedia of Software and Accessories (http://www.smartphonemag.com/encyclopedia.asp).
Also new to this year’s Buyer’s Guide is the “New Product Editor’s Top Hardware Picks†(page 101). For more than a year I have been making a monthly pick of the most innovative, useful, and well-designed hardware accessory I could find and these are my top picks.
So many new Bluetooth products have been introduced this year that I had to create a separate category for Bluetooth headsets. We’ve seen the introduction of Bluetooth adapters for both Pocket PCs and desktop PCs, allowing you to sync the two wirelessly. We’ve also seen the introduction of Bluetooth keyboard/mouse solutions for the desktop PC that also let you sync your Bluetooth-equipped Pocket PC.
On the more exotic side, we’ve seen the introduction of a CF card TV tuner that lets you watch VHF, UHF, and cable TV on your Pocket PC with the screen in portrait or landscape mode. We’ve also seen a one-handed keyboard and a scanner pen that natively beams data directly to a Pocket PC or Smartphone.
If you would like a weekly update of the most recently released hardware and software products sent to you via e-mail, subscribe to Diane’s New Product Report (http://www.SmartphoneMag.com/newsletter.asp).
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