Are there any PDAs, smartphones etc that can dock with a monitor and keyboard?

[thirdname]

I'm thinking of buying an Ipod Touch, but waiting for Apple to announce new products in a week. It allows wi-fi web browsing, but of course it has a very small screen. Iwas thinking it would be nice if it could hook up to an external keyboard and monitor for some very basic web browsing, word processing and so forth. It could save one from having to purchase a netbook or laptop in addition to the Ipod Touch. (or Iphone.) Looking it up, it appears that there are ways to use it with a Bluetooth keyboard, but no way to use an external screen.

Does anyone make any sort of handheld computing device that can also dock with a keyboard and screen? Ideally I would want something that could:

-play mp3 and AAC
-browse the web over Wifi
-play Internet radio stations through wifi
-have basic apps such as word processors, etc

Does anything like this exist, and not at an exorbitant price? I know they wouldn't be very powerful, but with smartphones and mp3 players basically being miniature computers, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to connect to a monitor. I'm sure the video hardware would cost a few bucks, but it could save some people from buying a netbook or laptop; people who want to stay connected but not use the laptop as a main computer for general work.

[CaveMike]

I don't know of any that do this now, but it is expected that some will in the next few years.

[chrisk]

This isn't quite what you were asking about, but it's probably worth mentioning the Palm Foleo project. This was never released, but it was sort of a pre-Netbook, (publicized just ahead of the first eeePCs in the same cycle, cancelled before the eee was released,) and it was designed primarily to link with a Palm Treo smartphone over bluetooth.

So once you brought the two of them in range, you could open up Documents To Go on the Foleo and edit a word processor file that somebody had emailed to you on your Treo, and use the Treo's GPRS connection (or wifi) to surf the web. And I do remember that it had some multimedia functions, because you could access youtube on the foleo over the network as well.

But this is a little more than you asked for in terms of hardware - the foleo really was a seperate unit, with its own processor and I think its own storage, as well as the monitor and keyboard. Still a pretty cool idea, though, and the smartphone/bluetooth link may be one that existing netbooks haven't caught up to yet, though I'm not sure. (I have two netbooks, but no smartphone.)

And if I remember correctly, it was cancelled because the market research indicated that most people weren't interested in paying for a smartphone AND a subnotebook computer dedicated to talk to it.

[chrisk]

I just found this article in PC Mag that appears to be talking about why what you were asking for doesn't exist: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351804,00.asp

Basically - rather than let your smartphone dock with peripherals that can make it function as a netbook/laptop, the Powers That Be are more interested in convincing you to buy a smartphone AND a netbook/laptop. Sigh.

[CutterJohn]

You can get bluetooth keyboards for PDAs/SPs, or at least could a few years back.

A video output on the phone itself is going to add extra cost to the unit, is a feature few want, and will require extra engineering fitting the additional(rather large) connection on an already incredibly cramped chassis. There have been a few, but its not a popular feature.

[coremelt]

Yes, it's possible right now on a jailbroke iphone:

connect a bluetooth keyboard to an iphone. see here:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-teh...d-arrives.html

official Apple TV out cable:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1454

officially this only lets you watch movies from itunes on the tvout, but another jailbreak app....
http://www.techhail.com/mobiles/tvou...-av-cable/2564

mini DIN-> rca video cables are common and they don't add any extra size so the issue is not adding extra expense in this case it's exactly that for whatever reason they don't want to let you do this in the official software. The hardware is capable of it using only official apple accessories.

[3waygeek]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

You can get bluetooth keyboards for PDAs/SPs, or at least could a few years back.

Pretty much any Windows Mobile phone made in the last several years comes with built-in support for BT keyboard and/or mouse. So you can use any BT keyboard, be it the full-size one you'd normally use with a desktop or one of the more exotic portable keyboards, which are a bit harder to find. I've used a folding BT keyboard with the last 3 generations of WM devices, albeit rarely as I usually only have to do a small amount of typing, which I can do with the built-in hardware or software keyboards.

Many of the newer WM devices offer some video out capacity, but it's usually composite NTSC/PAL video, and is usually available only with certain applications (e.g. PowerPoint). That was OK for earlier devices, which were usually 240x320 resolution, but many of the new devices have VGA or higher resolution, and composite video can't do justice to high-res images. I suspect it'll be another generation or two before you get VGA+ outputs on smartphones, or they may bypass the video output altogether in favor of a built-in projector, so that any light-colored flat surface can be your display.

[Bbusyb]

There is a product called the REDFLY Companion which allow you to connect supported Blackberry and Windows mobile devices to it.

While it has its own keyboard and Screen, it uses the phones Process and OS, and has no processing Power of its own. It has a VGA out to allow you to connect it to a projector or Monitor.

[CT_Damsel]

Years ago (maybe 8?) I had a Viewsonic Pocket PC and purchased a belkin (I think it was that brand) keyboard that folded up to about the same size. They worked great when I needed to type a lot of info into the the v35.