PDA phones are gaining popularity these days, and it's not a big mystery as to why. There are several distinctive advantages for switching over to a smartphone. Here's a short list of them:

1. You can have all your appointments and obligations concentrated in one calendar - on your PDA phone. This way, if you are notified on your phone that a new appointment has been set, you can immediately update your calendar.
2. You can Carry less weight - you don't need a cell phone and a PDA separately.
3. Less technical hassle, less upgrades and less hardware to take care of.
4. Be stylish are cutting-edge!

So now that we're convinced about the great advantage PDA phone has over the traditional PDA and cell-phone, how do we go about choosing one? There are dozens of models on the market, from manufacturers such as Blackberry, Samsung, Palm One and HP. So it's important to know how to find what you are looking. So what are the important guidelines one must consider when getting a smart phone? Let's have a look at a few choosing parameters experts point out:

1. Reliability - does it work for many months and year with low maintenance and only few malfunctions? Does it have too many soft resets? Does it have any installation issues? You can find out more about that in different forums that relate to the device you are looking at buying. Don't buy and PDA that has serious and repetitive reliability issues.
2. Design - is it small enough to be carried around easily, yet comfortable enough to work with? Is it east to press the keys and operate? PDA phone that is hard to operate may be a real nightmare.
3. Quality - Is the cell phone quality good enough? In some smartphones, the cell-phone part was a bit neglected. So you get a great PDA, and a mediocre cell phone. If a good quality cell phone in important to you, don't compromise on this subject.
4. Compatibility - is it compatible with enough software and hardware applications to make it a useful tool? Remember that if your PDA phone is a great device but is not compatible with high quality software than it won't do you any good.

There are more parameters to making the right decision and choosing the right PDA phone for you. Consulting with current owners of the products you're interested in and reading reviews can help you gather important information.