Add-on options create a new world of mobile communications to suit a widening band of users

For gadget geeks, the basic personal digital assistant (PDA) is passe. Gone are the boring days of devices which were little more than bulky electronic appointment books. The PDA of 2001 is a sleek, pocket-size unit which juggles your life, tracks your bills, sends e-mails, plays MP3 music, keeps your contact lists and makes phone calls.

A great deal has happened since our last roundup of what is hot on the market. The explosion in popularity of PDAs in the past year resulted in the debut of new players such as Sony, while older ones, such as Compaq's fast-selling iPaq, were given facelifts.

Technology Post tested eight of the latest PDAs to help make more sense of what is available.

With any of Handspring's Visor series of handhelds, you can turn a dull PDA into a digital camera or a Nintendo Gameboy. There are more than a 100 different modules available for the Visor's expansion slot, but the one most gadget geeks are lusting after is the VisorPhone.

It is a small PCS/GSM module, priced around US$249, which, as the name suggests, transforms the PDA into a phone. According to Pac Rim Technologies, the VisorPhone will be available in Hong Kong by the middle of the year.

Making calls is just the start of the exciting things a phone cum PDA product can offer. A handheld computer with mobile phone capabilities lets you send and receive e-mail by wireless and access the Internet as well as use instant messaging.