I've been thinking (not too seriously, but seriously enough) about how much crap I carry around, and how much valuable electronics devices I leave in my car on a daily basis. What I have figured out that I want... not really NEED but it would be nice: - Phone with headset capability and/or bluetooth w/speakerphone - WinMobile PDA with normal WiFi and wireless carrier-based internet for non-wifi spots - capable of holding between 5 and 10 gigs of data (hard drive or flash based, I don't care) - GPS, even if it's just a PDA app (but the antenna would need to be built in) - XM receiver - FM transmitter - car docking - computer docking - I'd want it to be not larger than the current generation of slide-out keyboard PDA phones, but large enough for the screen to be readable in a car. the newer 480x640 screens would be ideal - battery life on standby 24-48 hours... I would never go more than 10 without it being in a dock for a considerable amount of time. "active" time on battery 6-8 hours (talk, MP3 playing, web browse, etc) - swappable battery so I can always have a spare ready So... am I dreaming? Something like this doesn't exist yet, but how long am I going to have to wait for something like this? There are already phones that can do much of that, but I want it all to be run through the OS of the PDA. Anyone else have something that they'd like to add, remove, or change? If something like this came out, I'd expect to pay through the nose, but I Think it would be worth it, especially for the car functionality.
A phone that receives XM... As for the car dock, if it has a built-in FM transmitter, you could probably just leave it somewhere near the car's AM/FM antenna and not have to worry about a proper dock. You would need, however, to plug it in to your car's DC output. I have been hearing about some cities installing WiFi connections to their street lights. As this gets more commonplace, you'd probably need the following: Laptop with wireless card, mobile phone with GPS, mobile XM receiver. You could get the XM channels over the wireless internet onto your laptop, or the mobile XM receiver. The mobile phone would serve for personal communications and GPS. Your only problem would be the limited range of WiFi. If there was WiFi that worked for over several miles, you'd be fine. For now, that's probably your best bet in consolidation.
I'll be honest though I know it will never happen. A device that is capable of running a stripped down version of Mac OSX that can support Safari/Firefox, run the Citrix ICA web client, Apple Mail, iTunes, iPhoto, Quicktime. Obviously no need for all the other fancy OSX features. 50gb hard drive. 2mega pixel camera that can take pictures and import directly into iPhoto but also be reversed for using with iChat/Skype 2 by 3 inch screen. Headphone socket. mini keyboard and touch screen using a stylus. All the above will use wi-fi for communication. Normal quad band phone facilities for voice and text messaging. I'd be willing to pay about $1000 for that and would ebay my phone, blackberry, iPod and laptop.
For me that wouldn't replace my laptop, since a laptop is my main computer, and I wouldn't want to use Photoshop or Battlefield 2 on a handheld device..
By the way any of the newer pda phones can get xm thru http://mobile.musicdock.com As long as it has WMP.