Choosing a PDA needs to begin with defining once again what PDA stands for. It stands for 'Personal Data Assistant' and this can be any electronic device that assists you with data management. More exactly, PDA is personal and this is where the lines become blurry.

eBook Readers are becoming popular for many reasons. I have found that I am using mine as a 'mini' PDA. When I first received my eBook Reader all I did was read books, but eBook Readers allow music, audi files, images and a host of file formats that do not have to be 'books'. I began storing proposals and media kits inside my eBook Reader and have found it very useful.

With the PDA smartphone you cannot easily transfer data while at the clients. Using the eBook Reader transfering documents and data are a simple USB plugin. You can seemlessly upload a PDF version of your proposal, drawings or images to your client. Instantly they have all the paperwork required.

As soon as eBook Readers have color I see more features showing up that will make more sense to the consumer to use these devices as a PDA. What a great way for the sales staff to view and read documents they need to review while traveling. This will save companies thousands of printing and labor dollars.

Another advantage to the eBook Reader becoming a simple PDA is the screen size. It is far more readable. Plus you can make any report or list or calendar or virtually anything into a PDF file format. The skies the limit to what you can do with an eBook Reader as opposed to a small PDA smartphone.

The eBook Reader needs to be wireless. Wireless is important for a PDA device since instant data upload/download is important. PDA smartphones do this via emails whereas the eBook Reader would need to exchange files via webserver. Instead of downloading a book you would be downloading a file from your companies server.

I love my PDA smartphone, but since I have an eBook Reader also I am finding that the eBook Reader is easier to read and use for certain data functions. I cannot have realtime calendar information, so the PDA smartphone is there, but when I travel to clients I have all my files uploaded to my eBook Reader in case I have forgotten a file. I am beginning to use both of these items as my PDA's.

To me it seems that the future for both PDA's and eBook Readers may be crossing and working in different ways. Look at Star Trac Voyager. They use what look like eBook Readers for data and information exchanges constantly. I see the future as the eBook Reader becoming more than just for reading books!