Powerful gadgetry

Three years ago, Stephen Gates received a new cellular phone that doubled as an MP3 music player.

He looked down at the device and wondered why he would want one gadget that did the work of two when he already had a functional phone and music player.

Mr. Gates, senior manager of communications for the Arlington-based Consumer Electronics Association, soon arrived at the same eureka moment that customers and companies alike have been having ever since.

“It just hit me,” he recalls of how the gadget would make life easier for Metro commuters like himself. “I don’t have to do the fumble maneuver. I just hit one button.”

Call them smart phones, hybrid toys or convergence wonders, today’s multipurpose devices pack the features of several once-unique technologies in one ever-shrinking package. Some gadgets might make James Bond sit up and take notice.

The cellular telephone is the unifying element so far.

“Seventy percent of the American public has a cell phone,” Mr. Gates says. “That’s the one device they’ll have on them. They may or may not have a [personal digital assistant] or a digital camera.”

PalmOne’s Treo 600 phone, for example, combines a mobile phone, a digital camera, Web browsing and e-mail capacity all in one unit.

“The more you can do with one device, the less you have to carry,” Mr. Gates says.

The first smart gadgets weren’t really all that bright. Gadget gurus mostly gobbled them up; their limited memories and modest battery power made them more novelty acts than functional tools.

In just a few short months, technology leapt so far forward that cellular phone sizes shrank while the number of features grew.

Microchips could process information faster than before. Tiny lithium batteries suddenly offered longer operation times.

All the fancy gadgetry could end up hurting sales of these devices, cautions John Chier, public relations manager for Kyocera.

Mr. Chier, whose San Diego-based company produces a number of versatile phones, says customers tell the company via surveys that they want simplicity in their cellular phones.

“People are excited about convergence, but they don’t want to be overloaded. There’s a backlash against the gadget mind-set,” he says.

“If you look at any product adoption cycle, it’s a classic bell curve,” Mr. Chier says. “The early adopters … transition into more mainstream crowds.”

For now, the cellular phone is the convergence medium of choice, with some exceptions for PDAs.

Tomorrow, the video game may take a chunk of the market, says Andrew Hawn, TechTV’s labs director and managing editor of product reviews.

The San Francisco-based tech expert says both Sony and Microsoft are dumping cash into the gaming market, which will feature devices allowing for text-messaging and wireless connectivity along with gaming systems.

The existing wireless systems that carry all these signals from one mobile phone to the next also will soon get an upgrade, says Mr. Hawn, whose cable network offers a host of programs focusing on the latest computers, gadgets and video games.

The Universal Mobile Telecommunication System, being rolled out in several cities this year, will offer broadband-speed connections to mobile phones, Mr. Hawn says. Until now, the speed at which information traveled over wireless mobile phone systems resembled dial-up Internet speeds.

Japan employs a similarly swift operating system.

Another looming advance involves downloading film and television content onto one’s mobile phone.

Mr. Hawn says he and his fellow TechTV colleagues used to bash the hybrid devices on the market.

“They were kind of a Frankenstein concoction, a Jack of all trades and master of none,” he says of the first such gadgets, which either offered poor interface or couldn’t integrate the functions in a smooth manner. “The amount of memory, the camera quality, the input-text pad, they’ve all been substandard.”

No more.

The latest models streamline the functions into efficient, hand-held phones.

“All the little pieces came together,” Mr. Hawn says.

For example, the Sony CLIE PEG-NZ90, a combination PDA and camera, takes 2.0 megapixel digital pictures, a level of quality comparable to that of many digital cameras on the market, he says.

The more powerful the microchips became, the more functions could be packed into these devices.

Mr. Hawn says Intel just released a new chip that supports faster processing speeds, allowing for camera phones with higher resolution and sharper video screens.

Travis Larson, spokesman for the District-based Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, says the gadgets keep getting smaller — and more powerful.

“My phone has [not] only gotten smaller over the last five years, but it’s gone from a strictly voice device to a true computer,” says Mr. Larson, whose nonprofit group represents and supports the wireless industry.

Simplicity is the key for the average consumer, who Mr. Larson says doesn’t want to jump through virtual hoops just to send an e-mail via a hybrid gadget.

“If they have to tap through three menus and then tap through three more, suddenly, you’ve got a long list of instructions to remember to send an e-mail,” he says. “They want something that’s intuitive.”

In the coming months, consumers can expect a steady climb in feature options, including ever-sharper pictures from their mobile phones. The gaming side of these devices will only increase in quality, too, Mr. Larson adds.

“Games are an important part of the suite of offerings on phones,” he says.

The best part for consumers is that prices for these products are reasonable compared to the costs of other gadgets on the market.

“If you’re willing to commit to one- or two-year terms of service, the odds are the [mobile] carrier will give you an enormous discount,” he says. “The average ’smart’ phone runs from $200 to $500, depending on a whole range of add-ins. … The wireless industry is so competitive, carriers are offering generous discounts.”