I think that these manufacturers all understand that the average person on the street might find some or all of these devices useful, but the Batman Factor drives them to make painful decisions about what they will actually use.

For years my co-workers and I have been saying that what we wanted was a palm pilot which had a cellphone built in. When operational requirements placed a pager and a blackberry on my belt along with the Pilot and the cellphone, I blew the Batman Factor completely. For those of us who need multiple functionalities, these all-in-one devices are exactly what we want.

The VisorPhone was a good try, but doomed to failure due to the form factor. Now today, we have things like the Kyrocea and more mature devices like the Treo. But more importantly, we have devices made by manufacturers who are recognising that phones do not have to look like phones — the new Blackberry is one such device, or the Motorola V101 are perfect examples. I use a handsfree device on my cellphone now, and hardly ever use the phone with out it, so the phone form factor is not something strictly necessary for me.

I’ve been looking for a device like this — the Treo is a little hard to come by here in Canada, but this Blackberry looks perfect.