A technical review of mobile computational devices

Mobile technology is changing so fast, with new products being introduced daily, that any review of specific devices will rapidly be so out of date as to be unhelpful. Thus, this review focuses on general classes of device, with examples of manufacturers and machines for illustration only. There is a major convergence of technology in progress, which some view as leading towards single devices with multiple functions such as mobile phone, multimedia computer and digital camera. Others predict a host of mobile activities (e.g. digital imaging, video, location sensing) and many different devices offering subsets of these. Whatever the outcome, the trend is towards a greater variety of technologies. New mobile phones are capable of video calls, multimedia and video messaging, and loading and running programs such as interactive games or teaching packages. Some handheld computers have built-in high speed wireless connection to the Internet either through Wireless LAN or GPRS phone link, or both. New pen tablet computers come with full Windows operating systems and wireless LAN connection and so can function like laptop computers as well as notetaking devices. Over the coming decade the convergence will continue, to embrace mobile Internet gaming, remote monitoring (e.g. of household appliances or laboratory experiments), and mobile interactive television. Currently, mobile computational devices can be divided into six general categories, in rough order of computational power: wrist-worn devices, mobile phones, handheld computers and PDAs, web pads, pen tablet computers and laptops.