PDA GPS is a melding of two important and useful technologies--personal digital assistants and global positioning systems--creating a powerful productivity tool. Since their introduction, PDA's have become an important organizational tool in many people's personal and professional lives, assisting with appointments, addresses, and to-do lists. Advances in global positioning system technology and digital mapping have changed the way we look at and use maps.

For the average user, both PDA's and GPS technology are at their most useful when they are small and portable. Consumer GPS units have steadily shrunk in size over the last several years, such that many powerful units available today for a reasonable price are no larger than a standard cellular phone. PDA GPS marries these two technologies, turning your personal digital assistant into a powerful mapping tool.

PDA GPS Options

There are several ways that PDA and GPS technology can be used in conjunction. A PDA with serial input capability may be coupled with a many standard GPS units via a serial cable and the appropriate software. This can be desirable in that you can display more information with both the PDA screen and the typically smaller GPS unit screen, but has the disadvantage of requiring two separate units.

More appealing to some is a GPS receiver specifically designed to attach to a PDA as a card, but this still requires two separate pieces of hardware without the benefit of two screens. The latest technology integrates the PDA and the GPS receiver into one unit, such as the iQue 3600 by Garmin, providing the best of both worlds. As PDA technology becomes smaller and more powerful, I believe this will most likely replace the other options as the choice for PDA GPS.